Search for the Shadow Key

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  She tried the door and found it unlocked. It was heavy, but nothing her will-enhanced strength couldn’t handle. This was a door that had struck terror in the hearts of Dream citizens for ages past. It was a door that turned away seasoned warriors. But, in spite of all that, in spite of the warnings, eight-year-old Kaylie Keaton entered the Lurker’s lair.

  Waiting impatiently for his Dreamtreading partners to show up, Archer paced the plateau. If possible, it had gotten colder up there, and an odd bluish-tinted snow had begun to fall. The flakes were much larger and longer than those of the waking world. They looked like feathers, as if someone far above had been ripping pillows open a thousand at a time.

  How long has it been? Archer wondered, glancing up at Old Jack. Too long. He’d worn a path in the snow, almost a perfect figure eight in and around Nick’s crab apple tree and Kaylie’s big Patches doll. All three anchors were flecked with fresh snow and looked somehow lonely. No, more like old and abandoned.

  Archer stopped pacing. A shadow approached from the eastern side of the plateau. It was a dark bulky figure, obscured by the snow but advancing rapidly.

  “Whoever you are,” Archer called out into the swirling wind and snow, “I am a Dreamtreader, and this is our protected territory. Who are you, and what is your business here?”

  The dark figure continued undeterred, a sooty specter in the white landscape. There was something magnified about this being, as if, beneath the heavy hood and cloak, a great power resided. Archer clenched his fists at his sides like a gunslinger and readied his will. “Last warning!” he called out, deepening his voice for effect. “Announce yourself and your purpose, or face the wrath of a Dreamtreader!”

  The hooded and heavily dressed stranger stopped a dozen yards from Archer and said, “G’day, mate!”

  “Nick?” Archer said, sighing deeply. “Is that you under all that fluff?”

  “Hey, fool me once,” Nick said, “shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I hate the cold.”

  “You had me a little worried, walking up here all cloaked like that. I could have thrown a school bus at you.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” Nick said, dropping his hood and winking. “But, ah . . . since we’re on the subject: ‘Face the wrath of a Dreamtreader’? A little dramatic, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe,” Archer said. “A little. Okay, yeah, it was way over the top. Still, you’re all bulky in that outfit. You must have fifty pounds of weather gear on.”

  “Like I said, I hate the cold.”

  “I bet it wasn’t cold around Lady Kasia,” Archer said.

  “No indeed,” Nick said. “A might too friendly.”

  “Did she have any information?”

  “Yeah, heaps. She told me the Lurker is working with Bezeal, that he has some connection to the Shadow Key. Might be we need to pay the Lurker a visit.”

  “I agree,” Archer said. “That it?”

  “Well . . .” Nick hesitated. “I think she knows more, but she wouldn’t tell me unless . . .”

  Archer raised an eyebrow. “Unless what?”

  Nick mumbled something.

  “What?” Archer asked. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

  Nick sighed. “Unless I accept her proposal for marriage.”

  Archer blinked. “That . . . well, that would be kind of an issue, huh?”

  “Ya think?” Nick shook his head.

  “Well?” Archer asked, shifting back and forth on his feet.

  “Well, what?”

  “Did you—”

  “No, I did not agree to marry her! Think I’m mad? Dooley, that woman is three kinds of creepy.”

  Archer stifled a laugh. “Yeah, you meet all kinds here in the Dream.”

  “Never met her kind,” Nick said. “Hope I never do again. How’d you do?”

  “Shadowkeep was deserted,” Archer said.

  “What about Bezeal . . . did ya find him?”

  It was Archer’s turn to hesitate. “Yeah, I found him,” he said. “I—I didn’t get much from him. But he told me that he doesn’t have the key.”

  “You believe him?”

  “This time?” Archer said. “I think I might. I think he wanted me to know that someone else has the Shadow Key. I think he’s taunting me, daring me to find out.”

  “Who is it, then?”

  “The Lurker, maybe,” Archer said. “Or it could be one of the Lucid Walkers.”

  “Who?”

  “Trespassers in the Dream,” Archer explained. “Through research and sleep science, they’ve found a physiological technique to enter the Dream.”

  “That explains a lot,” Nick said. “I’ve seen others here. Long before you woke me up. At first it was just one or two, doing things that other Dream citizens couldn’t do. But, I dunno. Over the last year maybe, I’ve seen a lot more of them.”

  “That’s because of Rigby Thames, Kara Windchil, and their company, Dream Inc.” Archer gave Nick the short version of Rigby’s recent endeavors. He didn’t spare any details or feelings.

  “Get out!” Nick said. “So that’s why the Dream’s been full of a buncha ankle biters. That’s why there are heaps of new breaches all the time. You think this Rigby fellow has the Shadow Key, then? Think it’s all his doing?”

  “I confronted him,” Archer said. “Back in the Waking World. He hates me—that’s for certain. But would he be so reckless as to let the Scath out? Honestly, I don’t know.”

  Nick nodded. “No one said this would be easy.”

  “You’re dead on right there,” Archer said, thinking of Bezeal. “In fact, we were warned that things may be even harder than we can imagine. The Creeds tell us that.”

  “Guess I haven’t read that far,” Nick muttered.

  Archer nodded, but he was lost in thought, weighing how much, if anything, he should tell Nick about Bezeal’s ominous transformation in the dark. The red eyes lingered . . . it was almost like he could see them, luminous like bloody lights in the falling snow.

  “Archer?” Nick queried.

  “What?”

  “You there? Seemed like you blinked out on me.”

  “Sorry,” Archer said. “A lot on my mind.”

  Nick glanced over Archer’s shoulder and nodded. “Kaylie should be back soon, shouldn’t she?”

  Archer turned and looked up to Old Jack. “She should have come by now, but we’ll wait.”

  “I’ve only got about an hour,” Nick said. “That’s by Dreamtreader law, right?”

  “Law number three in the Creeds,” Archer replied. “I’ve got about twenty minutes more than you, so I’ll stick around.” C’mon, Kaylie, he thought. Where are you?

  Kaylie knew her time was running out, but the Lurker’s stronghold still had tunnels, passages, and doors she’d not yet searched. She felt certain her father was there somewhere, if she could just find the right door.

  She finished exploring a vast vaulted chamber filled with old storage chests and peculiar furniture, and moved on to a kind of cell block that seemed promising. There were eighteen barred alcoves, all locked . . . and all empty. Kaylie began to despair.

  I don’t have enough time, she thought. Daddy, I need to find you, but I can’t wait much longer.

  She began to move recklessly, ricocheting from chamber to chamber until, in a shadowy corridor, she plowed into a freestanding coat of armor. It tipped over and crashed, making a horrendous ruckus. Kaylie half expected her father to come running around the corner to yell at her.

  She wished he would, but no one came. She hurriedly picked up the pieces of armor and tried to reassemble them on the frame, but failed miserably. That was when she noticed the door.

  It had been hidden behind the coat of armor, a narrow door nearly the same color as the stone of the corridor. She tried the handle. It opened.

  It was pitch dark, so Kaylie willed an oil lantern and carried it down the steps. Down and down the stairs she went, into the dank chill of the underground. Near the bottom of the
steps, the lantern revealed a series of huge vats. They reminded Kaylie of the huge wooden pens at the European amusement park where the staff would dance around, crushing grapes for wine. If the smell of this subterranean chamber were any indication, however, the Lurker hadn’t been mashing grapes.

  Kaylie set foot on the chamber floor and turned up the wick on the lantern to get a little more light. It showed a cavernous room full of all manner of surreal twisting and turning pipes and pipettes, tall cylinders, networks of flasks, and barrel-sized beakers, each filled to varying degrees with putrid colored liquids.

  It’s like a giant’s chemistry set, she thought, wandering between the great vats. There didn’t seem to be any prison cells or anything that would obviously hold captives, but Kaylie continued on.

  She found one of the vats had a movable ladder hanging from its high lip. When she climbed to the top, she held out the lantern to see inside. From the stairs, the vats had seemed empty. And this one mostly was. Mostly.

  Adjusting the height of the flame, she saw that there were a few lumps or globs of something at the bottom of the vat. She leaned forward even more. She recognized the shapes. They were bulbous, long, eellike creatures, each with several circular sets of leech teeth. Scurions. Now that she could see better, they were unmistakable. But these were larger than most of the scurions she’d encountered while sewing up breaches. They were the most unpleasant part of that nightly chore.

  Gross-o-rama, she thought. These were even nastier than . . . than—

  A realization. Kaylie’s brilliant mind had been spinning the variables until the correct conclusion arrived. “Someone’s been breeding scurions,” she whispered. Quickly, she clambered down the ladder. Her foot hit the floor, and she froze.

  Squee-eeak!

  Kaylie spun around and shone the lantern. She thought she’d heard something . . . a chirp or a wooden creak, maybe. The light showed nothing.

  She rounded the vat and found a large pipe secured at its base. It ran from the vat to some kind of junction at the wall. Other pipes from other vats met there as well. Kaylie investigated. The pipes were metal, and each had numerous hatches and pressure wheels. Kaylie followed one to the wall, opened up its hatch, and held the lantern up.

  There were more dead scurions in the pipe. She lowered the lantern into the pipe and looked down its length as far as the light would cast. More scurions—a trail of the dead, but going where?

  Kaylie gasped. Like one of her encryption apps unraveling chains of computer code, her mind spun. The last element fell into place. She stood up sharply and closed the hatch.

  “No wonder we can’t keep the Dream stable,” Kaylie whispered. “The Lurker’s been breeding scurions to rip open breaches below the surface. Breaches we would never fix because we’d never see them.”

  The raspy voice came from the huge shadow at the top of the stairs. “I really wish you hadn’t seen that.”

  “You need to get back,” Archer said. “I’ve got a little more time. I can wait.”

  “Look, mate,” Nick said, “I wouldn’t worry. Kaylie’s newer at this than I am, right? And she’s so young. She probably just lost track of time.”

  “That’s what scares me,” Archer said. “She could be in trouble somewhere out in the Dream.”

  “Or, maybe she went back to the Waking World before either of us got here. Young people don’t always think before they do.”

  Archer had to smile at that. “Yes, we do a lot of that kind of thing.”

  “See, that’s probably it, mate,” Nick said. “Old Jack still says I’ve got a little bit of time, ten minutes. If Kaylie is still out here, that’s all she’s got as well. You should go back to your home and see. If she’s there, all’s well. If not, at least you have a little time to come back and hunt for her.”

  Archer nodded. “That makes sense,” he said.

  “Right, then. I’m off,” Nick said. “Good luck, mate.” With that, Nick leaped up, grabbed the lowest branch of his crab apple tree, and vanished.

  Archer took a hesitant step toward his anchor. “Razz!” he called out. “Razzelestia Moonsonnet, get over here!”

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t appear. While not unheard of, it was still odd for Razz not to answer for so long a period of time. If I could talk to Razz, he thought, and just know that Kaylie went back early, then I’d be fine.

  Archer shook his head and reached for his anchor.

  NINETEEN

  HOURGLASS SANDS

  WHEN ARCHER AWOKE, HE WAS IN A STRANGE ROOM. The curtains had a floral pattern. They weren’t his. The closet was in the wrong place. There were two lamps, not one. The dim light from the hallway had a burnished brown cast, not the bright yellow of his home. Something was very wrong.

  Archer sat up and rolled out of bed. The disorientation lingered. He went to the bedroom door, saw the length of the hall, the numerous rooms, the crown molding, intricate light fixtures—details of luxury—and then it dawned on him: I’m at Amy’s house. Why do I keep getting confused like this?

  Kaylie.

  His consciousness rolled in like a tidal wave. He had to make sure Kaylie had come back. He charged down the hall to Amy’s room and froze. Her door was shut. What was he going to do? Barge into a young woman’s room in the middle of the night? That would be awkward at best, but if Amy’s mom got wind of it? Archer didn’t want to think of that.

  But Kaylie was in there. He had to get to her. “Duh,” he muttered to himself. He knocked three times on the door. They were sharp knocks, enough to wake most sleepers.

  After a few seconds, “Mom?” came Amy’s sleepy voice.

  “No, it’s Archer. Sorry to wake you, Amy, but it’s important. Can you check on Kaylie?”

  “What?” Amy asked, cracking the door and looking out. “What are you talking about? She’s right there on the bed. She’s fine.”

  “Wake her up,” Archer said. “Please. I don’t have time to explain. Please just wake her up.”

  Amy let the door drift open a little more. She wore a long flannel nightgown. “Okay,” she said.

  Archer watched her waddle back to the bed. He heard her call to Kaylie, saw her give Kaylie a little shake, and then a more solid push. Archer heard Amy’s voice rise, calling again for Kaylie to wake. Archer watched in horror as Kaylie’s form remained as still and silent as stone.

  “Archer!” Amy cried out. “Kaylie won’t wake up!”

  Coma.

  Archer had heard the word before. Once, his mother had an adverse reaction to a cancer treatment. She’d slipped into a coma for a few long days. It was a terrifying thing. But somehow, seeing Kaylie like this was worse. Far worse.

  The trauma doctors and pediatric surgeons could find no reason for the coma, no other symptoms. The coma just was. But Archer knew why. He hunched over in the waiting room, buried his head in his hands, and the tears drained out.

  He absently felt Amy’s hand patting his back and Mrs. Pitsitakas’s steadier hand on his shoulder.

  “No, no, no,” he muttered. This couldn’t be happening. Kaylie was trapped in the Dream. She’d stayed beyond her Hour of Reckoning, and now, like Rigby’s Uncle Scoville, she was reduced to a comatose prisoner.

  “I tried, Kaylie,” Archer whispered, holding her small hand through the hospital bed rail. “I tried . . . but I just couldn’t fall asleep. I couldn’t come look for you. I’m sorry . . . so sorry.”

  The tears on his cheek dried, almost as if they’d flash-boiled into vapors. Archer’s breath quickened. He let go of Kaylie’s hand and felt the heat of rage surging up within. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the summoning feather. He tossed it in the air and watched absently as a bluish glow slowly bordered the hospital room door.

  Then Master Gabriel materialized.

  “I’m going to kill him!” Archer hissed.

  “Calm yourself, Dreamtreader!” Master Gabriel thundered often like this, and when he thundered, his Incandescent Armor flashed like light
ning. “Rigby may not be to blame here.”

  “But it’s Kaylie!” Archer railed, his voice high and desperate. “She’s just eight. Eight! Look at her!”

  Master Gabriel moved to her bedside. Archer watched his mentor’s face carefully, saw him swallow deeply, saw his eyebrows loosen, and the slight tremble in his lower lip. But, in a blink, the Master Dreamtreader’s expression turned stony once more.

  “My sister,” Archer whispered. “My kid sister, and now she’s trapped in the Dream, forever.”

  “Not forever, Archer,” Master Gabriel replied quietly.

  “Oh, great. So she’s trapped until her physical body dies! That’s no comfort. Rigby’s got to pay.”

  “There is a broad and treacherous difference between justice and revenge, Archer. Do not tread in that gulf.”

  Archer paced the guest room. “But Kaylie? She’s just a little girl.”

  “Archer, know this,” Gabriel said. “She had only trained for a short while, but she isn’t just some little girl. She is a full-fledged Dreamtreader and one of the most powerful in a dozen generations.”

  “It didn’t keep her from missing the Stroke of Reckoning,” Archer said somberly.

  “No,” Master Gabriel said, “you are right. That she did miss the bell toll is not in doubt, but who caused her to miss it very much is. You will need to Dreamtread again tonight. You will need to search.”

  “Wait, I can’t go back,” Archer said, the pitch of his voice growing brittle and frantic. “I’ve been two nights already. The Nine Laws—I can’t go. No, no, that was the night before last. I’m confused. It’s getting so hard . . . I can’t keep all this straight.”

  “Yes, you can,” Master Gabriel said, his voice full of steel. “You can keep this straight. You must.”

  “But with my regular duties? The Dream nearing a rift? Patch up the breaches, find the Shadow Key, find Kaylie—how can I do all that?”

  “You will have Nick to help you,” Master Gabriel said.