Search for the Shadow Key

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been working with Research and Development on some new angles,” he said. “We’re stunting our growth by limiting Dream Inc. services to the rich and famous.”

  Kara stiffened. “But Archer said that bringing too many Lucid Walkers in and out would destroy the Dream fabric. We can’t do that.”

  “Archer said, Archer said,” Rigby mocked. “When you went to Archer and asked him to teach you to Dreamtread, what did he tell you?”

  Kara winced but kept her eyes riveted to Rigby’s. “He told me I wasn’t cut out for it.”

  “And do you agree with him?”

  She blinked exactly once. “No. I’ve as much right to the Dream as he does.”

  “Exactly,” Rigby replied. “You didn’t put much stock in what Keaton said then, so don’t treat him like some wise teacher now. If Keaton had his way, Dream Inc. would be shut down for good. Is that what you want?”

  “Of course not,” Kara replied. “But Archer’s not stupid, and we don’t yet know everything about the Dream and how it interacts with our world.”

  “Neither does Keaton,” Rigby said. “And all he’s got to learn from is some ancient book of creeds. We’ve got modern science on our side. The research is absolutely compelling and trustworthy. Besides, I’m not talking about letting the whole world go Lucid Walking.”

  Kara’s eyebrows met temporarily over the bridge of her nose. “You aren’t? I thought . . . you—”

  “No, no,” Rigby said. “While the data clearly shows that Keaton is overblowing the whole rift, ‘collapse of the Dream’ thing, I’ve no desire to share our secrets with the world. But what I would like to do is take advantage of other ways to assist the paying public with their dreams.”

  “Now, that sounds very interesting,” Kara said. “I’d like to hear about it, but another time. My time’s up. I need to head back.”

  Rigby stood and bowed. “Farewell, Queen Kara,” he said.

  She smiled and performed a curtsy. Then she was gone.

  Rigby clenched his fist around the cane so tightly that it trembled. He waited a few carefully controlled breaths to make certain that Kara was gone, and then he exploded, “How dare she!” he muttered. “Bezeal was right all along. Kara cannot be trusted.”

  “Y’know, mate, it would really help if I knew what we were looking for.”

  “Anything,” Archer said, studying the engraved pattern that bordered the doorway of the Inner Sanctum’s vault. The strange hinges on every slab of wood made it look more like a hundred doors than just the one. The stairs beneath fell away into an alluring darkness. “Anything and everything, really. We need to know who Bezeal’s warrior friend is, why they let the Scath out, and why they left the door open.”

  “And Bezeal is who, again?” Nick asked.

  “He’s a shifty little merchant out of Kurdan. Hooded cloak, you can’t ever see his face, but he has these little sparkly eyes.”

  “Sounds like a Jawa,” Nick said.

  “A what?”

  “A Jawa,” Nick repeated. “Don’t tell me ye’ve never seen Star Wars.”

  “I’m not big on fantasy. Well, fake fantasy,” Archer said. “Anyway, Bezeal is the one who showed up here with the Shadow Key, but he wasn’t alone.”

  “I’m not sure I want to be a Dreamtreader anymore,” Nick said.

  Archer felt his heart suddenly quicken. “What? Why?”

  “Well, you’ve not seen Star Wars,” he said. “I don’t think we can hang out.”

  “Very funny,” Archer said. “C’mon, maybe we’ll find a clue inside.” “We’re going down there?” Nick asked.

  “We have to,” Archer said. “But listen, among the old books down there, are some ancient manuscripts called the Masters’ Bindings. From what Master Gabriel says, they’re extremely tempting to a Dreamtreader, but we need to keep away.”

  “If it’s full of books down there,” Nick said, “how will we know which ones to avoid?”

  “The Masters’ Bindings are seven thick volumes,” Archer said. “And they are welded into iron cases. It should be fairly obvious.”

  “If you say so, mate,” Nick replied. “Just to be safe, I think I’ll keep my hands in my pockets.”

  The stairs led straight down, and the darkness gave way at first to amber light and then to something closer to red. Archer’s first thought when he could see the interior of the vault was that it reminded him a little of Rigby’s basement. There was a long hallway punctuated by doorways. Each doorway led into a chamber filled wall to wall, floor to ceiling with books. Each room also had a desk with a small lamp and a sturdy chair.

  Archer led Nick in and out of the rooms until they came to the end of the hall, where a broad room with a very low ceiling opened. This room was different. Pillars of stone, some floor to ceiling and others more like platforms, studded the chamber. There were also massive war chests, huge sunken-pirate-chest things stuffed with all manner of weaponry: swords, axes, staffs, spears, mauls, and maces.

  “Looks like an armory,” Nick said. “Fairly odd, don’t you think?”

  “Very odd,” Archer replied, scanning the chamber. Other than the overstuffed chests, everything in the vault seemed in order. The bookshelves all appeared full. There was no sign of Bezeal or anything left behind. Then Archer saw something very irregular. He shook his head. “I don’t know what this means,” he said. “Look.”

  He pointed to the central pillar. It was the only pillar in the vault that didn’t have at least one bookcase built on top of it. The central pillar had hunks and scraps of metal, the remnants of seven iron cases. And they were empty.

  Nick said, “I think I can guess what we’re seein’ here. The temptation got the better a’ someone, and he stole the Masters’ Bindings.”

  Rigby climbed to the tallest tower of Shadow Keep, the bell tower, and reached for the rope that hung from the high belfry. “Too bad you couldn’t be here for this, Kara,” he said. “You’re missing out on all the fun.”

  With both hands, he gave a mighty pull. Instantaneously the hammer struck the bell, sending the first low toll to roll across the Dream. Again, he pulled the rope. And again. A total of six tolls, he rang.

  “Come, hounds,” Rigby said. “Come and meet your new master.”

  SIXTEEN

  TAKEN

  ARCHER FELT SOMETHING WAS VERY WRONG EVEN BEFORE he touched the well, his anchor, and departed the Dream. He awoke in his bed to find Kaylie with an iron grip on his arm, shaking him and crying hysterically.

  “Archer!” she howled. “Wake up, now! Oh, please, wake up!”

  “I’m awake!” he yelled, jouncing upright in his bed. “Kaylie, what’s going on? I thought you had Dreamtreader training with Master Gabriel.”

  “I did!” she cried, her face three shades redder than it should have been. “But when I got back from the Dream . . .”

  “What?”

  “Dad is gone!”

  That was all Archer could get from Kaylie for some time. She continued to sob and wail. Archer hugged her and shushed her and picked up Patches every time she dropped the stuffed scarecrow.

  When she calmed down a little at last, Archer asked, “What do you mean Dad’s gone?”

  “Somebody took him!”

  “Aww, Kaylie,” he said, “don’t get so worked up. I’m sure Dad just went up to the Quik-Mart.”

  “His car’s still here,” she said. “And I’ve been waiting an hour.”

  Archer didn’t want to set Kaylie off by voicing his thoughts, but he stood up and led her by the hand. He went to the places in the house where his father might likely be found. He wasn’t in the basement on the computer. Archer even cracked open the basement work-side door and called in. There was no answer. He wasn’t in his chair in the den. He wasn’t on the screened-in porch, where he went to smoke cigarettes.

  But there on the porch, Archer stopped. There was a travel mug sitting on the table next to his father�
��s chair. It was three quarters of the way full of coffee, but it had gone cold. The nearby ashtray held remnants of dozens of cigarettes past, but there was one cigarette resting in the corner of the ashtray. It was burned to ash down to the filter.

  “See, Archer?” Kaylie said. “He was here. He was here.”

  “But where would he go?”

  But Archer thought of the answer before Kaylie replied.

  “The well.”

  It was close to sunup, but not close enough to have much natural light. Archer fetched a large flashlight from underneath the kitchen sink and went back to the porch. Kaylie snuggled her blanket and Patches close and followed Archer through the porch to the outside door. As soon as the door shut behind them, Archer turned on the flashlight.

  Kaylie inhaled, making a shrill gasping sound. The little glass table was on its side and shattered. All the deck furniture had been tossed around as if a hurricane had hit. Not likely in December, Archer thought, and he found himself remembering Amy’s phone call about the missing teacher. “There was sign of a struggle,” he whispered.

  Archer was torn now. He didn’t know whether to send Kaylie in the house or take her with him. Neither way seemed safe or responsible. He decided she would come. Archer shone the light on the deck stairs that led down into the backyard. They were still snow covered, but there were man-sized footprints in the snow. And there were dozens of other smaller prints, prints he’d seen once before but hadn’t understood.

  Archer searched the ground with the flashlight, scanning the beam across the snow and through the clouds of his own breath. The cold didn’t phase him, but he could feel Kaylie shivering next to him. He took her hand and said, “Come on.”

  The two of them followed the strange pattern of footprints, large and many small, through the yard, and down the hill. The trail led right up to the well. Archer felt the bottom drop out from his stomach. He had to look over the edge. He had to look down into the well. But he had a dreadful certainty about what he would find.

  Kaylie started weeping again. “Did Dad go . . . did he go down there?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m going to look.”

  “I wanna see, too.”

  “No,” he said, holding her back gently. “No, you let me look first. I mean it, Kaylie. Wait here.”

  Through her sniffles and flooded eyes, she nodded.

  Archer passed through the phantom vapors of his own frozen breath and approached the well. He swallowed, said a prayer, and then looked over the edge of the well. He trained the flashlight down into the well’s depths . . . and then gasped.

  “You say you were asleep when it happened?” the uniformed police officer asked.

  “We all were,” Archer said, rubbing his temples. “Kaylie was the first to wake up.”

  “And Kaylie is . . .”

  “My sister,” he said. Archer pointed to the long couch in the living room, where Kaylie and Buster sat mutely sipping hot cocoa. “Kaylie woke me up. We woke up my brother, Buster, last. Officer, we’ve already told you all this. Isn’t there something—”

  “Tell me more about the well,” he said, still scribbling on his notepad. “You said you suspected he went to the well. Why would you suspect that?”

  Archer sighed. “The well was special to my mom. She died eight years ago. Dad often went to the well to think, you know, for quiet time.”

  “Even on a snowy night?”

  “I don’t know,” Archer said. “It was just a hunch.”

  “And you said you went out there looking for your father?”

  “That’s right,” Archer answered tightly.

  “And you looked into the well?”

  “Right,” Archer said. “He wasn’t there.”

  “Tell me why you looked into the well again,” the officer said. “Did your father enter the well often?”

  “No, of course not,” Archer said.

  “Then why look into the well? Wouldn’t it be dangerous for your father?”

  “It could be dangerous,” Archer said.

  “Was your father mentally stable?”

  “What do you mean by that?” Archer exclaimed.

  “Just routine questions, young man.” The officer scribbled a few lines on his notepad. “And what did you find when you looked in the well?”

  “Ice,” Archer said. “The water in the bottom of the well was all ice.”

  “And that’s unusual?”

  “I’ve never seen it turn to ice,” he said. “Even when the temperature outside is below zero, seems like the water in there is somehow insulated.”

  “But now it’s ice?”

  “I already told—”

  “Archer!” Amy shouted from the front door. She ran for Archer. Her mother, wrapped in a thick fur coat, elbowed past the police officer to follow her in.

  “I am so sorry, Archer!” Amy said, hugging him. “So sorry.”

  “This is terrible,” Amy’s mother said. “Do the police have any leads?”

  “And who are you exactly?” the police officer asked.

  “My name is Cassandra Pitsitakas,” she said, anger simmering on each syllable. “As in Commissioner Pitsitakas. That’s my father, you understand. Now, are you finished with Archer and his siblings?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the officer said. “Yes, yes, we’re finished . . . for now. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “We haven’t been able to reach any next of kin,” the officer explained. “And . . . uh . . . our forensics unit will be all over this house. The kids can’t stay here.”

  “Of course they can’t,” Cassandra said. “The very notion! They will come home with me until our fine police force here brings their father back home safe and sound. We have plenty of room. Will that be all right with you, Archer?”

  He looked at Amy, who nodded emphatically. “That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Pitsitakas. Just until my father’s back home.”

  “Of course, dear,” she said.

  “I need to run up to my room to get a few things.”

  “Get whatever you need, Archer,” she said. “I expect your brother and sister might need a few things also.”

  She strode over to Kaylie and Buster. “No long faces,” she told them. “Pouting and worry never fixed anything. In our house, hope springs eternal.”

  When the alarm went off the next morning, Archer awoke in a strange room. It took him a few heart-pounding moments to remember. It was the guest room at Amy’s house. I am a guest in their house because my father has been taken. The rage boiled up within him like a geyser, but Archer tamped it down a few notches. He needed to think. To plan.

  Archer had ruled out coincidence. It couldn’t be. For his father to go missing just a few days after Archer had confronted Rigby? No, there had to be a connection. One way or the other, Archer would find out what exactly Rigby had done. And Archer would get his father back.

  He flicked the alarm to radio mode and listened to the news. The new snow and cold temperatures hadn’t been enough to get the day off from school, so that complicated Archer’s initial plan. He would have to go to plan B. Archer shook his head and got dressed.

  An hour later, Archer got off the bus and headed into school. He knew Amy was trailing him at a distance, hoping to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. Her mother had tried to convince Archer not to go in at all. He’d just suffered a family tragedy. He’d had very little sleep. He was upset.

  All true, Archer thought. Also true that I’m about to do something stupid. Archer didn’t go to his locker. He passed his homeroom by and kept walking. It was near time for the warning bell to ring. That’s my life, Archer thought. Controlled by bells.

  He glanced back over his shoulder and, as he’d hoped, Amy was caught in the crowds scurrying to get to homeroom on time. Archer wasn’t scurrying; he was plowing. He hadn’t been looking. He rammed straight into Brett Kiefer, the starting middle linebacker for the Dresden High varsity football team.
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  “Watch it, Smurf!” Brett bellowed, flexing shoulders that bulged even covered by a thick letterman jacket. “What’s your prob—”

  Archer wasn’t sure what happened. Immediately after smacking into Brett, Archer felt a tingling sensation. In his hands, on his shoulders, down his arms, even across his face . . . especially around his eyes—it was like tiny crawling streaks of lightning. And the image of a wolf became crystal clear in his mind. Archer clenched his fists, heard his own knuckles crackle, and glared at Brett.

  “Whoa,” Brett muttered, backing away. “Nah, man, it’s cool. It’s all good. My fault.”

  Archer blundered on. He had to get to Rigby before the late bell rang. Archer turned down the band hallway. Rigby usually held court next to the trophy showcase there until the bell.

  The hallway was jammed, but even so, students seemed to be giving Archer plenty of room to walk. I could get used to this, he thought.

  Then Archer saw him. Wasn’t hard. After all, Rigby was one of the tallest kids in the school. Archer blinked. Was he wearing . . . a top hat?

  He was. Like the Planters Peanut guy, or maybe more like the Mad Hatter from the Batman comics . . . Rigby was wearing an honest-to-goodness top hat. Archer couldn’t believe it. School had rules against wearing hats indoors, and Rigby Thames wears a top hat. The nerve of this guy, Archer thought as he pressed forward.

  Rigby was surrounded by a dozen of his closest suck-ups. Kara was there too. There was no way to do this without making a scene. Probably no way to do this without getting suspended. Archer didn’t care.

  Just before he invaded their circle, Archer felt a brief pang of reluctance. It was like a breath of wind through his mind, something telling him not to do what he was about to do. But other images were there too: Kaylie weeping hysterically, the mute distance in Buster’s eyes, the burned-out cigarette in his father’s ashtray, and the footprints toward the well.

  Archer burst through the circle of teenagers and rammed his fists into Rigby’s jacket, lifting the larger boy up from the ground and slamming him against the trophy showcase. Someone screamed.