Gatekeepers

by Sam Ferguson

  The four of them looked at me expectantly for a while. I smiled, but none of them returned the gesture. Instead, the warrior with the rifle gestured with his hand at me and spoke with the others. The two that had come last nodded and seemed to agree with whatever the warrior said. The old man sat quietly for a long while. At last a fifth man joined us at the fire. He was dressed similarly to the others, but I easily recognized him when he spoke.

  “Hello boy,” he said in that familiar tone.

  “You were the one who helped me,” I said.

  He nodded. “You are hard to reach, slow of hearing,” he said. He reached down and pulled a large stick from the fire. “Come with us.” The others rose up and walked a few yards in front of him. As I walked along with him, the drums stopped, replaced by a soft, but energetic, flute.

  “Where is the music coming from?” I asked.

  “Where else does music come from, but from the heart?” the old man said.

  “From my heart?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “The music is part of you, but it comes from us, passed to you as a gift. Come, we must walk into the forest.”

  I surveyed the darkness as the glowing fire atop the branch pierced through it to reveal the edge of a dense forest thick with trees and bushes. A warm wind blew around us as we entered the woods. A pair of elk stood grazing not too far off, but as I watched them, a pack of wolves took them down. I jumped, and felt my hand reach for my sword.

  The old man turned around with a stern look on his face. “Tonight, you may not use your weapon.”

  “But why not?” I asked.

  “Because, you have taken the power of the dream walker. It has not been given to you yet.”

  “What?” I asked. “But you helped me before, why would you stop me now?”

  He put a large, strong hand on my shoulder and smiled with his great, brown eyes boring into my own. “Before, I could not assemble the council. Now, we are all here. We are not come to stop you, but to test you, and give you a gift after you have proven your worth.”

  “What kind of test?”

  “Do you know how a Cherokee becomes a man?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Follow me, boy, and you will learn.”

  We walked through the forest, crossing streams and winding around large hillocks until we came to a dark and desolate mountain. It alone in the midst of the green woods stood black and scarred, as if a fire had ravaged everything upon it. We climbed the mountain until we came to a large stump, and then we stopped.

  The warrior with the rifle pointed off to the distance and said something in his language that I couldn’t understand, but I looked where he pointed and saw another pack of wolves, this time led by what appeared to be a werewolf. They were watching us.

  One of the other younger warriors pointed off in another direction. I looked over there and caught only a glimpse of something that appeared to have wings, but walked upon the ground and was much taller than the werewolf.

  “Boy, here you will learn what it is to be a dream walker,” the old man said.

  “What do I do?” I asked, thinking I was meant to fight the creatures hiding in the shadows while the other warriors judged my skill.

  “You are to sit upon the stump.” The old man pointed to the stump and smiled.

  I didn’t know what to think or do. “But why?” was all I could think to say.

  The warrior with the rifle began to shout and stamp the butt of his rifle on the ground.

  The old man patiently held up his free hand to quiet the others. “To be given the full power of a dream walker, you must pass this test. That should be answer enough. Sit upon the stump.”

  I moved to the stump and sat down.

  “Face the north,” the old man said, pointing in the direction I should face. I adjusted myself on the stump and rested my hands on my knees.

  “And now what should I do?” I asked.

  “In life, a Cherokee boy must do this same test. It shows that he has the courage to become a man, and the wisdom to join in his world, to become a part of it. For those who walk in dreams, the challenge is different. A dream walker must sit upon the stump, but the forest is one of nightmares.” The old man pulled a long, black cloth from a leather pouch and held it out to me. “You must tie this around your eyes.”

  “A blindfold?”

  The old man nodded. “To show that you have true courage, you must show the enemy that you have no fear.” I took the cloth, but I felt more than a little scared as I brought it up to my face. “After you have tied the blindfold and each of us inspects it, we will leave you until the sun rises.”

  I looked at him incredulously. “What if the wolves attack?” I asked.

  “You must sit upon the stump, and show them that you have no fear. If you try to run, they will catch you. If you try to fight them, they will defeat you. You must sit still and courageous in the face of evil. Do not remove your blindfold, or you will lose your eyes. Sit and remain still until the sun warms your face and you hear the call of the birds in the forest below the mountain.”

  I looked down at the black cloth and shook my head. This was madness. I had already seen the wolves take down a pair of elk. That was to say nothing of the werewolf or the winged thing lurking nearby. I already knew enough about the dream world to know that I could very easily die here and never live through the night.

  “Tell me, why should I risk this?” I asked.

  The warrior with the rifle fired a shot into the air and shouted angrily, but the old man pulled a hatchet from the air and held it out. He didn’t say anything. He just pointed the hatchet at the other warrior. The others all bowed their heads. The old man then turned to me. As he did so, I could see strange writing along the edge of the hatchet that glowed in blue.

  “I cannot say what it is,” he told me. “I can only say that it will be worth it.”

  “Will it help me protect my family?” I asked.

  “And so much more,” he said with a nod.

  I looked back to the blindfold and took in a deep breath. “Well then, let’s see what the night brings.” I raised it up and tied it tightly around my eyes. The old man stepped close, his feet crunching in the burned twigs and branches littered around the stump. He tested the blindfold in a couple places.

  “Good. Now, don’t untie it until the morning.”

  I nodded.

  I heard footsteps approach and then there were hands around my head and eyes checking the blindfold for weak spots. I assumed that I passed their inspections because after that I heard their footsteps grow distant.

  “Boy,” the old man called out. “If you survive, we will welcome you into our midst as not only a man, but a dream walker.”

  I nodded and sat still as I was told. Silence filled my ears. I wondered how close the wolves would come to me in the night, but tried to shake the thought from my mind almost as soon as it had come. The warm breeze turned decidedly cold, prickling my skin with goosebumps. It was startling how vivid the dream world could be in terms of senses.

  A twig snapped from somewhere behind me, startling me and sending a shiver up my spine. My adrenaline surged and my heart beat faster and harder. I strained my ears, barely catching the soft pads of something stepping along the burned ground a few yards behind me. It circled up around to the right, and then seemed to walk away, with the quiet footsteps growing more distant.

  Show no fear. I kept reminding myself over and over that the old man had said I would live through the night so long as I showed no fear. Don’t run, and don’t call for help. Just sit still.

  Something large flapped through the air above me. At first, my fear was that the winged monster was coming to snatch me from above, but the rational side of me reasoned that the wings were far too small to be whatever creature I had caught a glimpse of in the forest. An owl. It must be an owl.

  As the night wore on, my mind began losing its grip on logic. Every small crack became the harbinger
of a werewolf running toward me. Every flap of the breeze or rustle of the leaves made my brain envision the winged beast attacking from behind. Several times, my feet almost shot out without my permission. My very core was nearly yelling at me to rip the blindfold off and run down the mountain. My right hand was aching for my sword. Would it really disqualify me to summon my sword so long as I remained upon the stump?

  A loud thump hit the ground.

  Something growled nearby.

  My breath caught in my throat. This was insane. After all that I had been through so far, I was going to sit here like an idiot and let something kill me without a fight? Ridiculous. My hand left my knee and went up a few inches, on a path to take my blindfold from my eyes, but I stopped as an image of Tommy came into my mind. My son was sitting upon a white sand beach building a sand castle with Susan. In that moment, the old man’s words came back to me. If I passed the test, I would be better able to protect my family.

  Something brushed against the hairs of my right arm.

  I concentrated on Tommy and Susan. I had to pass this test, for them.

  Something snarled in front of me. I could feel its hot, putrid breath on my face. My adrenaline surged again, and my muscles begged to be let loose on whatever beast was taunting me, but this was not a battle of strength. It was a test of will.

  I focused on the image of my son playing on the beach and imagined myself walking up to them and playing in the sand as if nothing had ever split us apart. My beating heart slowed and my muscles relaxed. The snarling monster walked around to my back and sniffed me. I worried for a moment that perhaps pretending not to be afraid wouldn’t be enough. If a dog could smell fear, then what could a werewolf smell?

  My worries proved unfounded when the thing stomped away, snarling and hissing as it moved.

  I sighed with relief, but my rest was short lived, for not more than a minute later I heard great wings beating the air above my head. The air itself slapped down atop me, and then the creature landed with a mighty crash just a few feet away. Dust and dirt was flung into my face. I flinched and shook my head, but I stayed on my stump. I tried to call up an image of Tommy and Susan again, but this time I couldn’t concentrate.

  Something sharp set upon my left forearm. It poked into my flesh, pressing it inward but stopping just short of piercing my skin. I froze, holding as still as I could while under such a threat. A strange sound, like a wet noodle slapping the wall, assaulted my left ear. I heard the noise twice more, and then the sharp thing on my arm dragged downward. It was a feeling like a cat scratch, roughly pulling at the top layer of skin and tearing my arm just a bit.

  “I will tear your world apart,” a rough voice hissed. “I will feast upon your loved ones.”

  The voice was something I didn’t recognize, and the breath was most foul, like raw sewage and halitosis had gotten together and created some sort of unholy offspring that could be used in chemical warfare. My stomach twisted into a knot and I nearly gagged as the beast came closer and exhaled. “Don’t you know who I am?” the voice asked. “I am death, here to take the flesh from your bones and the light from your eyes. You cannot escape me, not in the dream world, and not in the mortal realm either. I shall always find you. No matter what you do, I shall win, and you will fail.”

  In that moment, a quote that had made its way around an email chain a few years prior came to mind. Essentially, the quote said that if you have a negative thought about yourself, tell it to go back to hell where it came from. I’m pretty sure that the quote proved to be one of those made up things attributed to someone who was never actually recorded as saying it, but nevertheless it helped me as the thing in front of me kept laughing at me with its horrid breath.

  I steeled my mind and sat up straight, convincing myself that not only was I going to live through the nightmare, but I was going to end this threat from the bunch of bloodthirsty drakkul hunting me down. No one was going to lay a finger upon my family, and I certainly wasn’t about to let some billionaire son-of-a-vampire launch a world-ending rocket into space. I was going to win.

  Without warning, the thing in front of me roared mightily, spittle flinging onto my face and hot breath washing over my front. Then, when I didn’t react, it ranted upon the ground and screamed angrily before flapping its great wings and leaving me in peace.

  After that, I could still hear things moving in the distance. Sometimes they came within a few yards, but nothing dared come as close to me as the winged creature had. I sat upon the stump and waited until I felt the golden, warm rays of sun on my face. I almost took the blindfold off right away, but thought I should probably wait until some light illuminated the areas around the edge of my blindfold, just to be sure it wasn’t something else breathing on me.

  After I heard the first birds start to sing and my eyes at last discerned that there was, in fact, sunlight, I reached up and smoothly pulled the blindfold down. To my amazement, what had been a barren, burnt hillside, was now sprouting with small flowers and seedlings. I reached down and took a small blue bell and picked it. Never before had a flower seemed so bright to me as this one did after the long night on the stump. I stood up from my spot and stretched my back. Then I surveyed the slope leading back down into the forest. I realized that the entire mountain was now starting to bloom and blossom with life. I turned around and saw a single, green shoot sprouting up from the center of the stump and marveled as it grew and unfurled right there before my eyes. It grew four feet tall and then thickened out into a tree. Branches shot out to the sides as I stepped back to give it room.

  Within a few more moments it began bursting with lush green leaves and brilliant, white flowers.

  “A dogwood,” the old man said as he came from a few yards away.

  “Where did you come from?” I asked.

  “I never left,” he said with a hearty smile. The old man pointed to a few spots around the mountain and in each spot I saw one of the other four warriors. They each smiled and nodded to me as I spotted them. Even the warrior with the rifle seemed happy to see me.

  “I thought I was alone,” I said.

  “In the real world, a young boy’s father remains with him in the forest through the night, watching over him. It serves as a reminder that none of us are truly alone, even when we feel most vulnerable.”

  “So you all watched over me, all night?”

  The old man nodded. “In the dream world, each member of the council of dream walkers remains throughout the test. It serves much the same function, in reminding you that you are never alone. Now, you shall be able to call upon our strength, and we shall come to aid you, when we can.”

  “So the prize is a team of dream walkers then?”

  The old man shook his head. “No. What you have gained now is the permission to be a dream walker. Pull your sword.” I summoned my fancy katana from the air and held it out to the old man when he reached for it. He pulled the blade from the black sheath and smiled. “You are an interesting man,” he said.

  Man. He called me a man, not boy.

  “A dogwood is an interesting tree for a dream walker to conjure. I suspect it is because you are a blend of Cherokee and Irish ancestry, and therefore the tree that grows upon your mountain is a symbol that can flourish in both lands.”

  “My mountain?” I asked.

  The old man nodded. “This mountain has lain barren for some time now, but as you have passed the test, it is now yours. The council of dream walkers is now complete. Six are required for the council to be at its full strength. Though we have passed on from the mortal world, we each were the dream walkers of our times. You are the dream walker for yours.”

  He looked down at the blade again and held his right hand over the metal. Above the engraving of the dragon that was on the lower half of the blade, a series of letters burned into the steel, glowing a bright blue. “Now, you are one of us. You are entrusted with the strength of our people to fight the shadows. Long may you live, and righteously may you judge
.” He held the sword out for me and I took it, staring at the letters. Many of them were similar to the inscriptions on the old man’s hatchet that I had seen the night before.

  “What do they mean?”

  “They are emblems of your spirit and power. You will have to discover their meaning for yourself.”

  I nodded and gave a light swing of the sword. It felt different, stronger somehow. “How do I call upon you and the others if I need to?”

  “We cannot always come to your aid, but we will be there when we can. Our council works on both sides of life and death. Those of us who serve after mortality strive to pass our experience and our foresight onto those who yet live.”

  Another question came to my mind then, one that I figured only he could answer. “How do I initiate a dream? I mean, if there is someone I need to find or fight, how do I make that happen?”

  The old man smiled. “You must find the place between sleeping and waking. Focus on that, and you will get it in time.”

  I nodded and was about to ask for a demonstration, but then the old man’s smile disappeared.

  The warrior with the rifle came running up the mountainside and he anxiously told the old man something while pointing and gesturing at me.

  The old man nodded and turned to me. “All right, brother, it is time for you to go back. The harbinger wolves have found your family.”

  “Susan and Tommy?” I asked. “But, Hank said they were safe, and Indyrith is with them.”

  “The elf is wise, but he is not a dream walker. The ship upon which they sail has been stalled. Go, you must go to them.”

  “Do the wolves come in the dream world?” I asked. “Can’t you send me there right now?”

  “No,” the old man said. “They found them using the dream world, but they are going to them in the real world. Go, now, you don’t have much time.”