Xander called it fulgenite, meaning “lightning born,” for he discovered that the stone drew strikes of lightning to it. And once struck, the stone became as light as cardboard and as pliable as clay. Warhaven was the only area of the Dream where the lightning stone could be found, but as Xander explored the region, he found its source. At the top of the nearby conical mountain, there was a crater filled with the brilliant white stone.
Rigby recalled that Xander was no fool. At least, not that kind of fool. He suspected at first that the mountain was indeed some sort of volcano. But after years of monitoring, research, and innumerable mining visits, Xander deemed it safe.
Xander built his fortress from fulgenite and even created a lightning stone stairway up the mountain. But one fateful night, while mining deep within the crater, Xander witnessed an amazing sight, one that took his Dreaming life.
A bolt of lightning struck the crater. This had happened frequently, given the attractive nature of the stone. This time, though, the strike seemed to activate a chain reaction within the stone. Lethal electricity discharged in a spiral until at last it drew down from the sky a brilliant bolt of lightning so massive that it kindled all the fulgenite to its molten state.
That vat within the mountain had stayed active and molten ever since. It was the perfect place to make things final.
Rigby alone climbed the lightning stone stairs. The light near the crater at the top was near blinding, but Rigby went straight to the edge. There was no heat, not like a fiery volcano in the waking world, but a sense of dread was there. The ferocity of the light blasting up from the raging cavity below created its own kind of terror. It was the terror of being unmade.
Rigby found himself wondering what Xander Volkov’s final thoughts had been as the cataclysmic eruption of power took him apart, molecule by molecule. Rigby stood on the edge of the crater, awash in currents of power and virtually blind by the white light. He could almost imagine himself teetering, losing his balance, and falling in. Falling and falling, maybe forever.
But no.
Rigby blinked for several moments. “What’s wrong with me?” he asked aloud, his voice instantly swallowed up by the unrelenting roar of the cauldron below. He shuddered.
Something wasn’t right. Rigby knew it. He felt it. He’d been changing, almost by the day, and it terrified him. It felt like ants were crawling all over his body, but just beneath the skin, itching but impossible to get at without doing more harm than good. And his thinking wasn’t clear—an absolute rarity for him—and he’d been making mistakes. He’d seen this kind of thing happen before. It had happened to his Uncle Scovy right before his consciousness became trapped in the Dream.
“I won’t let that happen to me!” Rigby shouted. From the deep pocket of his coat, Rigby withdrew the Karakurian Chamber, the Shadow Key. The Masters’ Bindings had confirmed his theory. He would set his Uncle Scovy free, and he would keep himself from being imprisoned. There was a high price to pay, both to Bezeal and . . . to the world. But he must not fear the costs. He must not allow himself to turn away from his goals.
Rigby looked down into the furious molten fulgenite. This was a threshold, he thought, but he was an explorer . . . a discoverer. And, like Hernán Cortés destroying his ships so that his sailors would be forced to stay and conquer the new world, Rigby knew he needed to make certain there was no going back. He had to step past the point of no return. If it thwarted Archer Keaton in the process, so much the better.
“This is for you, Uncle Scovy!” he cried out, holding the Shadow Key high above his head. “And for me!”
Rigby reared back and heaved the Shadow Key with all of his might. He saw it just for a moment, shining white above the cauldron. Then an updraft of phenomenal power took the key from sight.
On the way down the lightning stone stairs, Rigby opened the mental connection that allowed him communication with the Scath. “Have you located the man?” he asked.
“Easily,” came the first Scath reply.
“He is weak.”
“He will not fight.”
“Good,” Rigby said. “I’m not surprised. You have your orders. Make it messy.”
“Hehe. We like messy.”
FIFTEEN
THE THIRD
“ARCHER, ARCHER!” KAYLIE CRIED OUT, SHUTTING THE door behind her. “I get to be a Dreamtreader! Just like you.” She held up her fist for Archer to bump.
Archer bumped her but turned to Master Gabriel. “I knew she had the skills, but . . .”
“She more than has the skills, Archer,” he said. “She is very powerful for one so young.”
“Are you sure she can do this?” Archer asked. “She’s only eight.”
“Archer!” Kaylie objected. “I thought you wanted me to join you.”
“I did,” he said. “I mean, I do. But now that, well, now that it’s happening, I dunno. I just don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Nor do I,” Master Gabriel said. “That is why I must train Kaylie myself.”
“Me and Gabe have been talking about it for weeks now,” Kaylie said.
“Gabe?” Archer gulped.
Master Gabriel shrugged. “It comforts her,” he said. “So I allow it.”
“Wait.” Archer turned back and forth between Gabriel and Kaylie. “What do you mean you’ve been talking for weeks?”
Kaylie stared at her feet.
“You didn’t break into my new box? Did you?”
“Well, it wasn’t especially difficult,” Kaylie said. “I found your feather thing and threw it up in the air. Boom! Gabe showed up.”
“The Summoning Feather?” Archer cried out. “Is nothing secret around here?”
“You shouldn’t keep secrets, Archer,” Kaylie said, hands on her hips. Her expression was so stern, so comically, childishly stern that Archer burst out in barks of laughter . . . and snorts.
Even Master Gabriel smirked. “We will begin your training tonight, Kaylie,” he said.
“Sounds good, Gabe!”
Gabe. Archer shook his head.
Archer sat on a stone bench overlooking the waterfall near the little hamlet of Starcaster. No wonder Mesmeera loved Verse District so much, he thought, staring out over the cascading water sparkling with effervescent moonlight.
Archer waited for Nick Bushman to arrive. Their errands were urgent, but part of Archer wanted Nick to take a little longer. There was a saturating peace in this place. The dark water at the top of the falls seemed hardly to move at all, but after it crested the edge and poured over, it gained speed and energy. Halfway down, it flared alive with white fringes and spray. It crashed with a mighty but hypnotic voice in the stone-rimmed pool far below.
From there, the water became calm and dark once more, meandering a slow, curvy path through the midst of Starcaster. Small, irregularly shaped stone-and-mortar cottages sat amiably on either side of the water. Every chimney puffed lazy white smoke, and every window was lit with glad candlelight. It reminded Archer somehow of elderly friends gathered in a park to smoke their pipes and recount memories of full lives.
A screech overhead announced Nick’s arrival. The long-maned valkaryx that the Australian called Rocky spiraled down and landed softly near the edge of the water not far from Archer’s bench. His short-maned companion, Shocky, landed nearby.
Archer reluctantly left his bench. “How did it go?”
“Bonzer, mate,” Nick replied. “I got the little breaches quick using a running whipstitch. My mum showed me that one. She was a surgeon in the Royal Australian Navy. But some of the bigguns were fair ripe with scurions. I had to sic the boys on them.” Nick patted the pockets of his sleeveless canvas cargo vest. Boomerangs of several sizes filled each pocket.
“Nice,” Archer said. “You sure you got them all?”
Nick rolled his eyes. “You know I didn’t,” he said. “I saw what you did there, mate. You took out most of the really outta-the-way breaches to make it easier for me. I saw it. That’s why you g
ave me the Forms District in the first place. It’s yours, right? You know it well enough to set up for me.”
Archer tried not to laugh. He failed. “Guilty as charged,” the Dreamtreader said.
“Look, Archer,” Nick said. “You meant well. I’m new. But I’m not stupid or irresponsible. I’ve signed on. I’ll pull my own weight. From here on, okay?” He held out a hand, and they shook.
Archer glanced up at Old Jack. “Done, with four hours to spare. That’s good time.”
“But we’re not done, are we?”
“No, we’re not,” Archer said, climbing onto Shocky. “We’re headed to the Libraries of Garnet.”
“This is the coolest thing ever!” Kaylie exulted, riding the crimson vortex into the Dream for the very first time.
“It is quite random where the vortices drop you off,” came Master Gabriel’s voice in Kaylie’s mind. “And so, you need to be prepared for anything.”
“You mean, like flying turtles, talking radishes, or Porta-Potties that don’t smell bad?”
After an awkward pause, Master Gabriel said, “I mean, like anything. Anything at all. The Dream is the ultimate untamed landscape.”
Kaylie stretched out her arm so that she could touch the rapidly rotating Dream matter. “Ha!” she said, giggling. “It tickles.” She leaned her head so that one of her pigtails got caught up in the vortex. “I love this.”
“Now, remember what I showed you concerning the Intrusion waves.”
“I remember, Gabe,” Kaylie said. “Don’t be such a worrywart.”
“It is no simple matter, Kaylie,” he argued. “The Intrusions waves are the resulting chaos of every dreaming person on earth’s wildest dreams interacting with one another. If you don’t dampen them immediately with your will, you won’t be able to do anything.”
“I get it,” she said. “But it’s no different than fluid dynamics, and the laws of motion and energy make waves easy to predict. I’ve used computer-generated art software to create and control my own world-sized oceans, so this should be a piece of cake.”
“Hmph,” Master Gabriel replied. “We’ll see.”
Grinning and laughing the entire way, Kaylie let the vortex take her on a winding descent until, at last, it dropped her off into the middle of absolute chaos. Translucent waves came crashing in from every direction. Eddies and rogue currents swirled this way and that. And a vicious undertow yanked at Kaylie’s feet.
But the young Dreamtreader flexed just the smallest fraction of her will, and the tempestuous sea became as tame as water in a bathtub. “There,” she said. “See? No problem.”
Master Gabriel melted into existence beside her. “That . . . that was . . . well done,” he said. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
Kaylie giggled and looked around. Without the untamed Intrusions, she saw that they were in the middle of a vast desert. Huge mounds of violet-colored sand and massive mountain-sized mauve dunes trailed off in all directions. Nearby stood a sparse forest of tall cacti, and each vertical arm wore a cowboy hat.
“I don’t recall the hats,” Master Gabriel said drolly. “Your doing?”
“Yup, yup,” she said. “This feels like a western. You should be sheriff.”
Before he could object, Kaylie used her will to clothe Master Gabriel in a tall cowboy hat, leather chaps, and a dark vest with a shiny gold sheriff’s badge.
“I am not amused,” he said. He blinked, and his Incandescent Armor returned. “Let’s try to focus, please.”
Kaylie blushed. “Sorry.”
“Now, let’s review the creeds,” Master Gabriel announced. “I asked you to read the first three.”
“I did twenty-one creeds. Is that okay?”
“You read twenty-one creeds?”
“No, I memorized them.”
“Nonsense,” Master Gabriel replied with bluster. “Creed four, verse nine.”
“ ‘We call this the Festival of Culling,’ ” she said, “ ‘but it is hardly a holiday. This is an extremely perilous—’ ”
“Creed nine!” Master Gabriel blurted. “Verse eleven!”
“ ‘Tread not heavily the moors of Archaia within Pattern. There the mist gathers, so beware.’ ”
Master Gabriel adjusted his sunglasses and said, “Uncanny.” After a few moments, he said, “So I guess you know all about transportation options.”
“Sure,” she said. “Archer uses a surfboard, but I think he stole the idea from my brother Buster.”
“Yes, well, that may be, and Nick Bushman uses a pair of creatures he’s tamed here in the Dream. Have you given any thought to what you will use?”
“I want a dune buggy,” she said.
“A dune buggy?” he repeated. “Is that some sort of flying insect?”
“No, silly!” Kaylie put her hands on her hips as if trying to be patient with a toddler. “It’s a recreational vehicle with wide axles and huge tires that allow it to race across loose terrains such as gravel, soil, or sand. It’ll be perfect for here.”
“Very well,” he said, shrugging. “Make one.”
“What?”
“You had no trouble putting cowboy hats on the cacti . . . and on me. It shouldn’t be hard to make a dune buggy.”
Kaylie frowned and twirled a pigtail in her fingers for a few moments. Then she said, “You should put on your seat belt, Master Gabe.”
“What?”
Suddenly, the master Dreamtreader found himself in some kind of iron cage. Kaylie was next to him, and they both wore bulbous, hard plastic helmets.
“Ready?” she asked, flexing her knee to give the dune buggy a little gas.
The resulting roar startled Master Gabriel. “Confound it, Kaylie! Ready your weapons. There is a dragon behind us!”
“There’s no dragon,” she said. “It’s just the engine of my dune buggy. Here we go!” Kaylie stepped on the gas, and the vehicle lurched forward and raced up the nearest dune.
At the abrupt acceleration, Master Gabriel let out a sound. It was a sound that surprised Kaylie greatly. And once they’d come to a stop once more, Master Gabriel swore her to secrecy that she would never recount that event to anyone. Especially not to Archer.
Rigby threw open the gates of Number 6 Rue de la Morte, the Shadowkeep, and waltzed in as if he owned the place. He smiled at the irony. I do own it, he thought.
Sure, it had been built ages ago by the original Nightmare Lord, but he’d been evicted. It was Rigby’s home now. Wearing his Victorian-era John Bull gentleman’s top hat, a long black cape, and wielding a raven-headed walking cane, Rigby strode the shadow-strewn halls until he came to a double-wide stairway. Tapestries, darker than blood, hung from long arched windows far above. He raced up the stairs with eager anticipation.
“Tonight,” he whispered, “tonight will be wondrous.”
At the top of the stairwell, a large banquet hall lay quiet. The forty-foot table was set with plates, fine silver, goblets, and bowls, but the many chairs were empty. Rigby imagined a great feast there, with all of his friends and associates: the clink of glasses, the fireplace crackling, the thrum of conversation. Epic parties, he thought, leaving the table behind.
Rigby turned a swift corner, strode down the narrow passage that surrounded the throne room, and paused at the massive wooden door. It was ajar. Rigby frowned. He thought of himself as a man of extremes. When he left, the door was all the way open or all the way closed. Never, ever in between.
Someone else had been in the throne room . . . his throne room. And there was a possibility that whoever it was might still be in there. Rigby snapped his elbow. The walking cane became a black mace. He knew there was no easing open the door—it groaned like an old man on the stairs—and he wasn’t about to slink into his own room, so he grabbed the brass handle and threw the door open wide.
Ready to bludgeon or flay the first person he saw, Rigby pounced into the room and yelled, “Who dares trespass here?”
He saw his throne from behind and a
willowy thin, pale arm on the armrest. His armrest.
“Who are you?” Rigby demanded. “And give me one good reason why I shouldn’t destroy you.”
It’d better not be one of the confounded idiots from Dream Inc., he thought. They knew the boundaries. But as Rigby drew near, he felt cold creep into the pit of his stomach.
“Because I’m your partner,” Kara said, and she leaned around the tall seat and winked.
This called for a change of tactics. This was different. Kara called for a certain kind of diplomacy. Rigby swallowed down a gallon of flaming bile and said, “Comfy?”
Kara beamed. “It is rather nice,” she replied.
“Good. Now, get out of the chair,” he said, cranking up the jokey tone while maintaining a base of iron beneath. He wanted her out of the chair, to know her place, but not to feel indignant.
“You aren’t jealous, are you?” Kara asked. Her words lacked emotion but not thought. It felt like a doctor’s questioning, trying to identify symptoms and be very diagnostic.
“Why would I be jealous of my partner?” Rigby asked, willing the mace back to its cane form. “You’ve just as much right to the throne as I do.”
“That’s sweet of you to say,” Kara said, easing slowly from the chair. “But we both know you don’t believe that.” Kara strolled a semicircle around Rigby and lightly touched his shoulder. “Did you see the profit margins for last month?”
“Not yet. Good?” Rigby grinned, settling snugly onto the throne seat.
“As of November, Dream Inc. is the fastest startup company to reach a billion dollars in net profits,” Kara revealed.
“Splendid, Kara,” Rigby said. “Your marketing efforts have played a huge role in that success.”
“If you’re going to be this nice,” she said, “maybe I’ll sit the throne here more often.”
“A billion dollars is a nice number,” he said, sitting up in the massive seat, its color like midnight ice. “But really, I think it’s just the first few drops of the storm to come.”
“You think so?” she asked.
“I know so,” he replied. “Dream Inc. is about to diversify.”
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