Rig was staring directly at Jeff as if he was waiting for an explanation.
Jeff bristled. “It’s my brother who is missing, and I thought we could help.”
Rig snorted. “Help? And exactly how were you going to help? By bleeding all over the shimmers until they could not move? Or, oh wait, I see, you were the decoy, yes that would work. While they were eating you, we could get to Matt and back without any interference. A walk in the park. Now why didn’t I think of that?”
“There is no need to be nasty, it was not like we expected that, whatever that was!” retorted Jeff.
“Exactly!” said Madgwick from behind them, pushing through the branches and making Jeff jump. “You did not know and still do not know what to expect. This is serious and dangerous.”
When Jeff opened his mouth to argue, Madgwick raised his eyebrows and looked pointedly at Rhed, still draped over Rig’s shoulders.
This was by far the biggest trouble that he and Rhed had ever gotten into. And if Rig and Madgwick had not come back for them they would have been elaborate toothpicks by now. Jeff shivered as he remembered those teeth.
Jeff looked at Rhed and he swallowed loudly. “You are right, I’m sorry, we’re sorry, we should have listened. Is he …” Jeff hesitated as his throat closed up. The events of the night with Matt being kidnapped and the attack in the forest were just too much. “Is he going to be okay, Madgwick?”
Madgwick smiled and he patted Jeff on the arm, “Yes, he is going to be fine. We thought it would be easier for him to travel while sleeping and give his body time to heal, but he will be awake later on. The shimmers are following us but the dust is confusing them. Nevertheless they will catch up sooner or later, we have to keep going. Which way do you think, Rig?”
Rig turned in a circle, his eyes closed. He stopped, facing a huge oak tree. “We go this way. There is a lake not far from here, we can lose them there.”
Rig chose the way with his eyes closed.
Jeff thought he was the strangest thing. He had just seen Rig fight better than any ninja or marine in any combat movie. He was as strong as anything, he had been carrying Rhed while making a run through dense forest and he was not even breathing hard. In fact, it did not even look like he noticed that Rhed was on his shoulder. He was not the friendliest, but he was a fierce warrior. Jeff was glad he was on Team Rig.
They started in the direction that Rig pointed out. The older warrior was quiet as usual, but Madgwick seemed more approachable. However, after seeing the fierce warrior fight with deadly precision just a short while ago, he was wary of talking out of turn.
Jeff had badly underestimated them. They were not just some silly fairytale sandmen. They were still going fast but not in a mad rush like earlier. Jeff thought he could ask Madgwick a few questions, hopefully without making him angry.
“Um, Madgwick,” he ventured, “What exactly were those things in the forest? You called them shims?”
Madgwick answered without turning or slowing down. “Shimmers, they are called shimmers. They are the works of an evil witch called Wiedzma. Her little pets.” He snorted in disgust. “Their sole aim is to force themselves into children’s dreams. That’s where we come in. It’s our job to stop them.”
“What do you mean, force themselves?”
“They arrive as invisible mist but they infiltrate dreams. They turn them into nightmares. Quite horrid.”
“And you fight them? But how do they get into dreams?”
“They search for a crack and sneak through from Drakmere into your world. They are invisible and create misery. Do you ever have shivers that run down your back for no reason?”
“Shimmers?” Jeff asked with wide eyes, his eyebrows high in his forehead.
“Shimmers,” confirmed Madgwick, “They settle on a child at night and their misery and terror flows into the child’s subconscious and feeds the nightmares they pass into the child, understand?”
“So do you infiltrate the dreams to get them out?”
Rig snorted with laughter behind Jeff. Jeff did not even realise he was listening. He glanced behind him. Rig was grinning at Jeff’s questions, which he obviously thought were quite silly.
It was Rig who answered. “We don’t infiltrate the dreams. We have ways of forcing them out and then we finish them off. They have no chance against our warriors. In fact, many don’t make it into the dream state in the first place.”
Jeff stumbled to a halt as a horrible thought hit him. He stopped so suddenly that Rig skidded and almost dropped the still sleeping Rhed.
“Madgwick! Rig! Matt! Is he with … are the shimmers …?”
He was so horrified at the thought of Matt being at the mercy of shimmers that he could not get his words out.
Madgwick turned back to him, and put his hand on Jeff’s shoulder.
“Matt is nowhere near the shimmers.” Making eye contact with Jeff’s wide eyes, he continued. “I promise, he has not encountered shimmers. He is at Drakmere castle. They will not have shimmers anywhere near him, and he is safe, for now.”
Rig came to stand next to him. “Do you think we would be taking it easy with you, taking the long way to Drakmere if a child was in danger of a waking shimmer attack? One of us would have reached him already.” He turned away. “But we had to save your bacon so now we are completely off course.”
Madgwick nodded at Jeff, then turned and resumed the pace. Jeff, relieved, followed. This is taking it easy?
“What was in those cans anyway?” Madgwick asked.
“Don’t know. Rhed did the packing. He gave them to me. Didn’t really have time to read the label, if you know what I mean.”
“Too busy screaming?” Rig asked innocently from behind.
“Well yeah, I suppose, if you had a monster with red eyes and a huge mouth with a thousand teeth ripping you apart, I think you would be screaming too,” retorted Jeff.
“A thousand teeth? That’s what you saw and felt?” Madgwick’s voice was slightly raised.
“It felt like a thousand teeth. I thought I saw a monster but it really just looked like mist and eyes. What did you see?”
Rig answered, “We saw shimmers. Black mist. No teeth.”
Madgwick added, “The shimmers take on your fears. It won’t be the same as what Rhed saw or what any other child would see in their dreams. Each person and their monster is different, just as each nightmare is different, understand?”
“What do you see then?” asked Jeff.
“Us? We just saw black mist. They would have been easier to kill if they had a true form when we got to them but we just saw the red eyes and black mist. Our minds are different, protected. We were born into a race that fights this evil.”
“Lily air freshener,” a thin voice croaked from behind them.
Madgwick and Jeff turned. Rhed was waking up.
Rig put him gently on the ground. Jeff and Madgwick rushed to Rhed. Madgwick was digging in his bag again.
“Rhed!” Jeff exclaimed, “Are you okay?” Jeff was trying to reassure Rhed but did not really know where to touch him. He looked so fragile.
“Stop that,” muttered Rhed. “All hovering and batting with your hands, you look like a girl.”
Jeff sat back on his haunches. “Welcome back,” Jeff smiled at the wisecrack, too relieved to be insulted.
Madgwick asked Rhed to drink some liquid again. This time it was green and gooey.
“Do I have to? I don’t think I can get that stuff down again.”
Madgwick laughed. “This is different stuff, really!”
He held the bottle to Rhed’s lips. Rhed took a gulp, his eyes widening as the liquid hit his throat, but he had no choice as it was already half down.
“Yuck! That was gross!”
The effect was instant. Rhed’s eyebrows shot up and his hair rose as if he had been electrified. He looked wide-eyed as if his whole body had come alive. His pain and sleepiness were gone and he tried to smile but his lips ended up in a grimace as the awful taste
lingered in his mouth.
“What on earth is that? It tasted as bad as the white stuff.”
Madgwick smiled and packed it back into his bag. “That, dear boy was frog vomit. Excellent stuff that.”
“Frog vomit!” Rhed’s nose wrinkled and he started scraping his tongue with his nails, then he dragged his sleeve over his tongue, but it was too late, the stuff was down.
Jeff started gagging and had tears in his eyes from laughter. “Wait till Matt hears you drank frog vomit.”
He punched Jeff on the arm for that but by then he had joined in on the laughter.
Rhed got to his feet and stretched gingerly, testing his arms and legs. He still looked bruised and battered but the pain seemed gone and he looked energised.
“What was that? Because I feel great.”
Madgwick said, “Really. It was frog vomit. It’s hard to get and it works like a charm. The snail snot gave your body the essence it needs to heal and the frog vomit gave you a boost to get you back on your feet. Of course the potions have enchantments in them too.”
Rhed gasped and could hardly get the words out. “The white stuff was snail snot? Who keeps this stuff?”
Jeff stared at Madgwick with an odd look. “If that was really frog vomit and snail snot, what did I have earlier?”
Madgwick smiled and turned back to Rig, over his shoulder he said, “Mixture of cockroach saliva and maggot poop.”
Jeff sat down heavily while Rhed huffed with laughter. Once Rhed got his laughing under control, Jeff brought Rhed up to speed on what happened while he was out.
15
Madgwick and Rig glanced into the forest every few moments. They were talking furiously. Rig was muttering and gesturing with his hands, and it seemed like they were having an argument.
Rhed took a step closer to them. Yes, Rig and Madgwick were arguing. But they stopped when they realised that the boys were edging closer. “We will continue this discussion later,” Rig muttered.
“There is nothing to discuss. This is the only way,” Madgwick stated, picking up his bag.
He had a half smile on his face, maybe trying to reassure them that all was okay with Rig. “Good to go? We need to make it to the lake before twilight. It’s a bit of a walk but the sooner we get there the better. Shall we go?”
“Twilight?” Jeff asked, his forehead rumpled. He looked towards the sun, which was very low on the horizon. Back home it was dark, the moon had already risen.
Madgwick attempted a smile. “I know. It can get confusing here in Drakmere. Day, night … time flows differently in this place.”
“Time in Drakmere isn’t the same as the way you understand it at home,” Rig snapped. “We do not have time,” he rolled his eyes at himself, “to philosophise about it now. Let’s just say that time is an illusion. And each part of the kingdom is different. By now, it’s anyone’s guess as to how many days and nights have passed in the castle.”
Jeff and Rhed stood up, ready. Jeff had Rhed’s backpack. “So what were those cans that we used to spray?” He was trying to keep the tone light, trying to prevent himself from thinking about Matt in the castle, and the fact that by now he might have more than just one lonely, nightmare-filled night behind him.
“Lily air freshener,” replied Rhed.
Jeff stared at him with a blank expression. “You expected that we may need to use two cans of air freshener?”
“Well,” said Rhed, “I didn’t really have much time to pack so I just grabbed a few things.”
They started through the forest. It was slow going because although Rhed was awake and feeling good, he was a little slow. Rig doubled back every now and then to confuse the shimmers.
The second time he came back, he muttered, “They are gaining on us. We need to go faster.”
“Can we speed up, boys? Less talking more walking,” he grumbled to Rhed and Jeff.
“Going as fast as I can,” complained Rhed, looking at Jeff with big eyes as if he were asking, who is this guy?
Jeff was giving Rig dirty looks while Rhed tried to go faster.
Madgwick stepped between them when Rig opened his mouth to give a smart retort. “Not helping, Rig!”
Madgwick pointed through the trees. “See that shimmer in the distance?”
Rhed and Jeff winced at his choice of words. The word shimmer had a different meaning to them now. They looked in the direction Madgwick was pointing.
“What is that?”
“That is a lake. What’s it called Rig, do you know?”
“Therror, Lake Therror,” Rig answered.
“The shimmers are gaining on us and there are more than the six we were fighting before. If we make it to the lake before the sun sets then we have a chance to stay ahead of them. They won’t know which way we have gone.”
Glancing at Rig, he continued softly, “If we don’t we will fight but it will not be pretty.”
Rhed and Jeff looked at each other. “Let’s go, we can do this,” Rhed muttered. Jeff nodded. They gave each other a fist bump, stopped talking and started to walk faster.
They made a good distance. The sweat was running down their backs but they did not stop. The lake was getting closer until finally they broke through the trees and found themselves on a grassy slope that stretched all the way to the stony shore. The lake was an impossible blue. The orange glow of the setting sun glistened on the water, which made it sparkle like diamonds. Both boys looked longingly at the water.
Judging by the way Rig and Madgwick kept turning around, there was no time for swimming unless they wanted to get a mouthful from Rig or, even worse, a disapproving look from Madgwick.
The boys exchanged looks and kept their mouths shut. It was obvious that Rig and Madgwick were worried about the shimmers.
The warriors made their way to the shore line, arguing again. Rig had his hands on his hips, his face like stone. “No!”
Madgwick smiled and lifted his hands with his palms facing down. “It’s the only way to get the boys to safety. One of us has to make a stand and keep them fighting here until the boat is far enough that the shimmers cannot follow. There is no other way. There are too many for us to fight and still protect the boys.”
“I disagree,” growled Rig. “I know what it was like to lose someone in this place and I promised to never lose another. We stick together.”
Jeff gasped as he realised what they were arguing about. Madgwick wanted one of them to stay behind on the shore to fight the shimmers.
“Rig, please, you are a warrior. Think about it. Our mission is to rescue Matt. One of us has to get to Drakmere, one of us must do that and bring Matt back or we fail our mission. We swore an oath when we became warriors, to keep children safe. That includes those two boys,” Madgwick pointed in their direction.
Both boys cringed. Their impulsive decision to go through the doorway was having disastrous consequences. “Please, no,” both Jeff and Rhed whispered to no one in particular.
Rig dropped his head. Madgwick had won this fight.
Jeff and Rhed could not hear what they were saying. It looked like Madgwick had won his argument. Rig’s head was dipped as if he were submitting. Was Rig staying behind? They did not like Rig much but he was fierce and strong. What a blow.
“Fine, you win,” whispered Rig, “but then it must be me.”
Madgwick whispered back. “It can’t be you, Rig. You are the best chance all these kids have in getting out of here and back home alive. You are the most experienced warrior. There is not a trick you don’t know. You have been here before, you know what to do, where to go, what to expect. You are the best warrior.”
“They don’t like me,” Rig replied.
“They don’t have to like you. They just have to do what you tell them to do, but if you’re nice about it they won’t argue.” Then, with a smile, he added, “If they give you a hard time, there is always frog vomit.”
Rig moved towards the shore. He closed his eyes and stretched his hands out.
The dust in his hands bubbled and dropped to the floor, and within moments a silver, glittery row boat was bobbing in the water.
The boat was see-through. They could see the water beneath the boat and lapping on the sides.
Rig threw his bag in and addressed the boys. “Get in! Get in!” He rolled his eyes at their hesitation and got into the boat, grabbing the oars to steady it.
Still they hesitated until Rig yelled, “Stop wasting time, get in now!”
Jeff and Rhed clambered into the rocking boat, holding onto the sides. The boat felt solid, but it was weird that it was see-through.
Jeff was looking from Rig to Madgwick. As the understanding hit, his eyes went wide.
Jeff stuttered as Madgwick pushed the boat out, but Madgwick smiled at him.
“Listen to Rig. Promise me that you will listen to him.” Both Jeff and Rhed nodded glumly.
Rig settled the oars in the water then looked at Madgwick. “You have fighting skills, you are cunning and brave. Use that. Survive and get back.”
He started to row away. He raised his voice to ensure that Madgwick could hear him. “Because if you don’t, I’m coming back for you!”
Rig’s muscles bulged as he pulled harder and the boat started to move rapidly away from Madgwick who was standing knee high in the water staring after them. He nodded and gave a short wave before turning and wading back to the shore.
16
Madgwick stood with his back to the water. Angie’s warning that they do not like water made complete sense now, although he had no idea how she would have known. Shimmers did not like water and would do anything to avoid it.
They would go out but not too far so he was pretty sure his back was safe from an attack. He could feel that the shimmers were just a few moments away. In a rush, he saw the dust he had tossed in the forest streaking through the trees to join him. He felt better with all his magic in place.
He took a handful of this silver dust, moved his bag to his back and dropped the particles to the ground. He dipped his head before nimbly side-stepping a shimmer that was rushing him from the front. Then he flicked his wrist and the dust rose in a glittering flash, wrapping around the shimmer like a whip.
Jeff Madison and the Shimmers of Drakmere (Book 1) Page 8