“BOOYAAAAH!” ARCHER CRIED OUT AS HE SLID DOWN the wispy, whirling vortex, entering the Dream once more. From this height, the view was breathtaking: all the colors in the sky, the two half-moons, the other vapor tornados, and the rich and varied land beneath. It was extraordinary.
Archer came to the bottom of the funnel and hit the ground running. “Razz!” he called. A puff of fur and purple smoke, and there she was. “Ready, boss!” she said, saluting and almost knocking her acorn hat off.
“I’m not your boss,” he said. “Hop on. We’ve got a lot more to do tonight than usual.”
“More breaches?” she asked.
Razz hopped up onto Archer’s shoulder and got herself steadied. “Let’s rock!”
Archer called up his longboard, released his deflective hold on the Intrusion waves, and raced off.
Their first stop wasn’t far. A line of breaches flared on the outskirts of Varta. Pieces of the Dream fabric began to unravel at the breach’s edges. It had taken Archer and Razz until the stroke of four to finish closing that one up. After that, Archer and Razz surfed south through the rocky crags of Farnham Tor, repairing breaches as they went. At Riverford, in the deep south, they found a massive cluster of eighteen breaches. That took toward seven tolls.
When they’d finished their assessment and repair of the twenty-one fiefdoms in Archer’s districts, it was already ten. He’d purposefully planned their route to hit Cold Plateau last, as it was just across the border from the moors of Archaia.
Even so, there just didn’t seem to be enough time. Archer lay his longboard aside and sat on the edge of a vast ringed tree stump.
“What’s wrong?” Razz asked.
“Everything.”
Razz leaped into the air and glided back and forth in front of Archer’s nose. “Seems to me we did a bang-up job tonight. What’s the worry?”
“If you’d come with me to see Bezeal, you’d know.”
“Ohhhhh, I should have guessed it had something to do with Bezeal. How did he trick you?”
“You assume he tricked me.”
“Didn’t he?”
“Well, yes.” Archer explained the blood pact, what Bezeal was after, and what it could mean for every being in the Dream.
“Really?” Razz said. “Do you think it’s possible? Can the Nightmare Lord himself be defeated?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But if there’s a chance . . .”
“What are we waiting for?” Razz squeaked. “Let’s go get that puzzle relic thing!”
“What about the Lurker?”
“We’ll deal with him if we have to. You have plenty left in the tank, don’t you?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “But there is one more thing.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Gabriel told me not to go, not to get the relic.”
“What? Why?” Razz drifted to the stump and curled up.
“He wouldn’t tell me,” Archer said. “But I think he’s worried about me getting hurt.”
“I guess that settles it then,” Razz said.
“You don’t want to go now?”
“Are you crazy?” Razz yelled. “No one, and I mean no one, defies Master Gabriel.”
“Apparently Duncan and Mesmeera did,” Archer argued.
“You don’t know that,” Razz said.
“Well, I know they went looking for the relic and haven’t been seen since.”
Razz squeaked and said, “Maybe they were on a secret mission for Master Gabriel.”
“That makes no sense at all. Why would Master Gabriel send Duncan and Mesmeera and then forbid me to go?”
Razz looked sideways. Her nose twitched. “Do you really need me to explain it to you?” she asked.
Archer crossed his arms on his chest. “Yes, actually. Tell me why.”
“You’re just not ready yet,” Razz said, rolling her eyes. “Duh.”
Archer sighed. He’d been so hopeful that Razz would travel with him. “I have to do it,” Archer said. “I have to try. The Nightmare Lord has been going after my friends, my family, even Kaylie. I’ve got to stop him.”
“Yes,” Razz said, “we do need to stop him, but not by ignoring Master Gabriel’s commands. He’s just looking out for you, Archer. You’re not strong enough yet.”
“Of course I’m strong enough,” Archer said, his voice sharp. “I’m going.”
Razz frowned, leaped into the air, and flittered in Archer’s face. “Well, you can count me out then. I won’t cross Master Gabriel. Not now. Not ever.”
There was a crackling and then a puff of purple smoke, and Razz was gone.
Archer hopped up onto his board and caught a wave north across Achaia’s border. This is probably the biggest mistake of my life, he thought, seeing the moors just ahead.
“I’ve got to time this just right,” he said. “I don’t want to get too far away from my anchor.”
One does not simply surf into Archaia.
Archer caught a huge Intrusion as he went over the border, but that just made the fall even worse. The wave slammed into something Archer hadn’t seen. Suddenly, there was nothing under the longboard. It happened so fast that the Dreamtreader didn’t have time to call up anything to cushion his fall. He slammed into the ground chin first and ended up tumbling over himself several painful times. When Archer came to rest in a jumbled heap, he had a mouth full of peat moss and blood.
The Dreamtreader jumped to his feet and brushed himself off. He’d had worse spills but few quite as awkward. He looked back, but there was nothing there that seemed likely to cut a wave of Intrusions out from under him. Then it hit him. There were no inbound Intrusions at all. He reached out with his senses. Nothing. Nothing anywhere. Archer had never found a region of the Dream where Intrusions did not roll. It was peculiarly still. The whole thing sent a ripple down his spine.
Archer shrugged it off as best he could. “Razz, you’re really missing out here.” The Dreamtreader turned back to the north. The treeless, mossy, gray-green terrain undulated forever. Slate-colored shards of rock punched up frequently, and there were abundant craggy outcroppings of stone. As Archer looked on, a writhing tide of mist poured over the lip of a jagged stone rim, slowly drifting down into a dell about a hundred yards away.
With one last look at the distant face of Old Jack, Archer called up a gnarled driftwood staff and strode forward. He kept the pace as brisk as the uneven footing would allow and aimed as best he could for the center of the region.
“To find them and it, seek the rotten core, the home of evil out on the moor.” Bezeal’s words. Rotten core, Archer thought, adjusting his course to aim for the dark ridge where the mist flowed.
Scraggly dead plants grasped at Archer’s ankles. Here and there, the moss and soil gave way under his feet. Once, his boot sank up to his shin in the gray mud. The temperature had dropped and it seemed to be getting darker. The Dreamtreader hit the upslope and waded through waist-high, reedy grass. Altogether, it was a miserable slog. This is like Scotland, he thought. Only worse. Much worse.
The vaporous wisps of the fog slithered like indistinct serpents, trailing over and around the stones and clumps of tall grass. Soon, they spilled down at Archer’s ankles. He found himself mesmerized by the rippling motion of the mist. In the Dream, nothing was ever as it seemed.
Archer slammed the butt of his staff to the ground. An iris opened in the mist around his legs, but it was short-lived. The gray-white shreds surged back in. Archer had little choice but to keep walking in the midst of it.
The incline steepened. The mist thickened. Archer’s pulse quickened. The black ridge of stone loomed ahead. It was more of a rocky overhang than Archer had first thought. He stopped again, scanned the extent of the craggy horizon. It would be quite a trek to get around it on either side. It would—What . . . was . . . that? his mind demanded. The sound had been faint, but in the mist-dampened stillness, it was loud enough. Archer sucked in an icy breath. He stared at the darkness beneath the overhang. More than just volume, it was the form of the sound. Like a moaning, wailing shriek: high and desperate. Frightful.
Nothing moved but the ever-swirling mist. The gloom played tricks with Archer’s mind. The overhang almost looked like an archway of some kind.
The shriek again. This time, it rang out in the air and seemed to rattle the world. It was such an urgent, agonizing wail that Archer squinted and covered his ears. When it stopped, the mist withdrew back toward the overhang. Shred by ghostly shred, the sea of fog vanished over the ridge. Then the world really did begin to tremble.
A deep rumbling tremor began. It sounded like an avalanche or maybe a stampede. Archer stared up at the ridge of stone. Was that an archway? Was it some kind of doorway? If so, what was making that noise? What thunderous thing would come bursting forth?
As the rumbling grew louder, Archer raised his staff with both hands to a defensive position across his body. The roar continued to grow louder. It carried with it an aura of pressure that squeezed at Archer’s inner ear as if he swam in deep water. The Dreamtreader stared so hard at the ridge that he felt his eyeballs might burst. For a moment, everything stopped. All was silent, except for a single, solitary breath.
Screaming, wailing white skulls surged over the ridge. It was like a tidal wave of ghosts bearing down on Archer. The Dreamtreader yelped involuntarily and braced himself. The bone-rattling rumble, the ear-splitting shrieks—it was so painfully loud that Archer could scarcely think. But he had to protect himself against the coming onslaught.
It was a stupid idea, but it was the only thing that popped into his mind in the moment. Just as the spectral tsunami would have bowled him over, Archer created a phone booth. It was one of the old British police call box structures made of wood and iron and painted royal blue. Archer held on inside for dear life as the spectral wave hit the phone booth. The windows rattled and leaked howling shrieks. Archer held on as the fearful ruckus made his thoughts swim.
The moment the vibration stopped, Archer charged out of the booth. The ghostly wave of mist flowed away but reversed itself. The faces reappeared, scowling and wailing at Archer as they raced back. Archer threw his staff like a javelin at the oncoming spectral host. The Dreamtreader called up the strength of his well-trained mind and caused his airborne staff to change.
It grew a black nose cone. It sprouted stabilizer fins, two sets of four. A fiery engine suddenly propelled it faster. It hit the oncoming ghost wave and exploded in a dazzling spray of liquid fire. Like a wash of gasoline, it spread through, around, and over the specters. As their shrieks rose in pitch, Archer fell to one knee and clutched his ears. He gathered his focus as best he could and prepared for another strike.
But the shrieking wail faded to a distant, echoing moan. Archer rose to his feet but saw the threat had died out. Only a series of rippling circles made of still-burning pools of white fire remained. A distant bell began to toll eleven strokes.
Archer charged up the hill toward the stone ridge. He knew the archway was something, and he had no time to lose. He skidded to a stop in the ridge’s dark shadow and stood before a massive, arched, dark iron door. “Knock not once but twice on the Lurker’s door.” Bezeal’s command came ringing back to Archer’s mind. He lifted his fist and gave two sharp raps to the metal. Each blow sounded like distant thunder. One side of the door swung inward.
“Highly respectable effort,” came a high, crazed voice. “Or you would’na have passed my wraithlings, would you? No. Come in, come in, Dreamtreader. Come and join my little collection.”
“Sword,” Archer muttered. He reached over his shoulder and loosed the blade from his back hanger. Blue flame crawled up its cutting edge, but very faintly. When Archer stepped through the door, over the Lurker’s threshold, the flame went out altogether.
Yellow torches lit a curling tunnel winding into the stone.
“Come on, come on!” the voice taunted. “We have’na got all day. I suppose I should say you have’na got all day, right, Dreamtreader?”
Archer took a deep breath and nearly choked. A smell filled the air as if something had died and been left to rot. Yet there was little else to do but go forward.
Each torch flared once as Archer passed by. An even brighter light was somewhere up ahead, shining golden upon the curving stone.
Archer came into a vaulted chamber that looked very much like a laboratory. There were a dozen stuffed bookcases and twice that many shelving units holding jars of every size, shape, and hue. Small burners lit various beakers and cylinders on vast tables, but there was no sign of Duncan or Mesmeera.
“You said I was joining your collection,” Archer called out. “Where are the other two Dreamtreaders? Do you have them?”
“They visited me, yes,” the voice answered. “They came to call on the Lurker. Wasn’t that nice? And nice of you to drop by. Won’t you stay?”
“I don’t think I should,” Archer said. “It would be rude to take advantage of your hospitality.”
“Well-spoken, aren’t you, Dreamtreader?” There was coarse, hacking laughter. “On the contrary, it would be rude t’leave so soon. Can I get you something? A little refreshment, perhaps?”
Archer stared into the corner where the bright light’s glow seemed to originate. There was movement in that light, a shadow shape intermittently swallowed up by the light. “Well, maybe something, I suppose. I’m looking for a silver puzzle box. Do you know of it?”
The hiss that came out of the light made Archer feel as if his skin were shriveling.
“You seek the Karakurian Chamber!” the Lurker howled. “I was afraid of that. Now, unfortunately, you will have to stay.”
Archer turned but couldn’t take a step. Heavy chains appeared out of the ground. Faster than he could think, they curled around the Dreamtreader’s torso and constricted. “You . . . you’re killing me!” Archer cried out, struggling in vain.
“Not yet,” the voice said. “Sands of the hourglass will serve your fate, and we will forever have something in common. Forever!” The voice trailed off, and the shadow shape in the light became more distinct as it came closer. It took on the shape of a man. An impossibly large man.
A bell tolled in the distance. Archer sucked in a sharp breath. “No,” he whispered. “No, it can’t be time already.”
The bell tolled again. And again. Old Jack had tolled eleven just before the attack of the mist. That left one toll left: the Stroke of Reckoning. There came a fourth toll.
“Oh, dear, how unfortunate,” the voice said, and the tall shadow began to withdraw. “I am afraid you’ll have to wait until later for my attentions.”
“No, no, wait!” Archer yelled. “Let me go! You can’t leave me like this!” The bell tolled a fifth time. Archer summoned up all his focus and tried to will sections of the confining chain to split apart. But nothing happened at all.
“I am afraid I must,” the Lurker said. “I will return once I’ve dealt with the hounds.”
“Hounds?” Archer mumbled. Old Jack struck six. But no more came.
Wait, he thought. No wonder the Lurker heard the tolls too. Never had Archer been so glad to hear Sixtolls. Sure, that meant that the Nightmare Lord was unleashing chaos into the Dream, in effect, turning every dream to nightmare, but at least time still remained before Archer’s Personal Midnight. But not much time.
Archer heard a tremendous metallic thud. The Lurker had gone. Out to deal with the hounds? That struck Archer as very strange, but he didn’t have time to ponder it. He tried to free himself again with the full might of his will, but the chains didn’t even move an inch. They were as tight as ever, and as heavy.
“Razz!” he called. “I could really use some help here!”
No puff of purple smoke. No sudden fuzzy appearance.
“Razz? Come on! This is no time to be fickle! I’m in trouble here!”
“Think, Archer,” came a voice. But it was not Razz. It startled Archer until he remembered where he’d heard it before: this was the deep womanly voice that had helped him back to his anchor after he’d failed to take down the Nightmare Lord. “Use your mind.”
“I’ve tried that!” Archer grumbled. “It didn’t work.”
“Think chemistry,” the voice said. “Consider the chain’s properties.”
“Chemistry?” Archer muttered. “What? What do you—solids, liquids, and gasses. Solid, for sure. And a metal. No, wait.” Archer paused, thinking. He held up his one free hand. “Welding torch,” he said. “Mask!”
A shaded-visor mask fell down upon his head. An industrial-grade acetylene torch appeared in his hand. He went to work on the chain immediately, working the outer links to keep the heat bleed from burning his own flesh. The first began to redden. Soon, he had sheared the link in half. Some of the chain’s length fell away, but not enough to free him. Twisting his upper body painfully, he set the torch to another link on the opposite side.
When that link melted open, the rest of the chains fell. Archer leaped up out of the coils and started to race back the way he’d come.
“The puzzle box,” he whispered, stopping hard. He darted back into the laboratory and searched frantically. There were strange objects and artifacts in every nook and cranny of the place, but no silver puzzle box, the Karakurian Chamber, or whatever the Lurker had called it.
“I don’t have time for this!” Archer grumbled. He cast himself about the chamber, going to the bookshelves and cabinets. Still nothing promising. He couldn’t linger much longer. Who knew when the Lurker would return? Who knew when the Stroke of Reckoning would sound?
At last, Archer came to an odd cabinet made of bamboo with tortoiseshell handles. He pulled open the door and found . . . another cabinet. It was made of the same materials in exactly the same style, but it was scaled down one size. He slung open those cabinet doors and found . . . another cabinet.
He opened that cabinet, and the next, and the next, until there was one cabinet about ten inches high and seven wide.
Expecting to find yet another tiny cabinet, he opened the small doors. There was no cabinet, but there was a small silver cube. It was ornately carved with all manner of figures and symbols. The puzzle box. It had to be.
Archer snatched it up and sprinted out of the lab. As he raced out onto the moors, he heard Old Jack begin to toll once more.
“No!” he yelled, pouring on the speed. He used up every last bit of will to propel himself forward. He was running, but barely touching the ground, a blur on the moors. He crossed the border out of Archaia with two strokes of Old Jack remaining. He dove for his anchor.
Before leaving the realm of Dream, his last thought was about the relic . . . the puzzle box he’d taken from the Lurker. What would happen to it? Would it fall back to the ground in the Dream where any idiot could pick it up? Had all his efforts been for nothing?
But when Archer opened his eyes and sat up in his bed, he still clutched the puzzle box in his hand.