Search for the Shadow Key

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  “Its what?”

  “Eye lance,” he said. “That’s what I call it anyway. The thing’ll sap you, take your strength, sometimes even shut you down, but that’s when it looks directly at you.”

  “Sheesh,” Archer said.

  “I know!” Nick replied. “It’s a nasty beast.”

  The paravore was nasty—of that, Archer had no doubt—but that wasn’t actually what he was thinking about for just that moment. Archer marveled at how self-aware Nick seemed to be. He planned; he reflected; he had emotional reactions—it was like he was in some kind of pre-Dreamtreading state.

  “Yo, mate?” Nick said. “You’d better get focused.”

  “Sorry,” Archer replied, blinking rapidly. “Okay, duck the roar, avoid the eye lance—got it. Wait, how do I do that? I can’t fly for long.”

  “Stay in its peripheral vision, and move around a lot,” Nick said. “But ya gotta keep it from thinkin’ straight. Make it mad, and it’ll follow ya.”

  “I’m good at making things mad at me,” Archer said. He stood up and stepped toward the edge of the platform. “Here I go. Don’t miss.”

  “I never miss.”

  Archer dove from the stone perch, soared out to the creature’s right flank, and decided to start with fire.

  The paravore emitted a low gurgling growl that Archer felt as much as he heard. But the creature seemed focused on the pillars of stone. It rubbed its lower jaw tusks along the stone as if sharpening them.

  It’s testing the towers, Archer thought as he banked hard back to his left and made straight for the paravore. But why? It toppled bigger trees without a second thought. Was there something about the stone, something the creature didn’t like, didn’t trust?

  “Here goes nothing,” Archer said, flexing his will and calling up a glob of molten rock for each hand. He increased his speed and readied the attack. But as he neared the creature, he found himself overwhelmed by the thing’s sheer size. From shoulder to foot, it had to be at least sixty feet. If it turned too swiftly and opened its jaws, it was certain to be able to take Archer in a single mouthful.

  Archer drove those thoughts away and steered toward the mid-section. He thought he might come in super low and aim for the paravore’s underbelly. Perhaps it was a weak area. At the last second, though, Archer spotted a fan-shaped projection of flesh laying flat against the side of the paravore’s head. It was ridged and tapered toward a dark cavity.

  An ear! Archer thought. Gotta be.

  That became the target. Archer swooped up and curled hard, letting loose with the fireballs. The Dreamtreader heaved them both at the creature’s ear but couldn’t stop and watch the impact. He curled away just as a flare of angry orange exploded. The paravore roared again, but the pitch was higher, more frantic. In pain.

  Now for the tough part. Archer had to get the creature to see him without directly fixing him with the eye lance attack.

  “C’mon, you stupid, thick beast!” Archer yelled, swerving in and out of the paravore’s field of vision. “Yeah, I’m the one who toasted your ear! That’s right—whatcha going to do about it?”

  Archer risked looking over his shoulder just in time to see the creature snapping its jaws wildly, seemingly in frustration over the burning sensation in its ear. But its massive head whipped back around.

  When the paravore turned, its red eyes flared. Archer couldn’t see the lance attack, but the evidence of its coming was unmistakable. Wherever the paravore’s gaze lined up with a stone tower, flecks of rock blasted outward in little whirling clouds that caught the moonlight.

  “Uh-oh,” Archer muttered. He tried to rocket upward, but an invisible wave hit him. Hard. All at once, Archer lost the ability to fly and careened out of the air into the foliage.

  SNAP! CRACK! Branch and bough shattered on Archer as he tumbled end over end. He slammed into the mossy turf far below and lay still.

  The paravore’s roar startled Archer back into the moment, but he was dazed. His thoughts bumbled around in his head, and he couldn’t focus. Creature. Big. Move. Run.

  It was enough to get him stumbling to his feet and hands. He rose up on all fours and clambered like a spider over the ferny terrain. Then he heard it: KERRACK! It was the earsplitting shatter of stone. The paravore had overcome its hesitance to cross into the pillars. Archer rose up and turned in time to see a massive stone tower crashing through the treetops right at him.

  He dove and fell into a muddy creek bed. The tower came crushing down to the earth, smashing trees and shrubs alike. It slammed to the ground, bridging the creek, and coming to rest just above Archer’s shoulders.

  “Snot-blasting nose nuggets!” he exclaimed, rolling out from under the fallen tower’s shadow, just as a huge section of stone broke loose and fell into the creek bed. It hit the mud and water and sent a gooey spray all over Archer. He blinked and wiped the muck from his face, but he didn’t have time to think about the near miss.

  The paravore continued its advance. Each footstep brought a minor earthquake; each roar sent ice slivers careening up Archer’s spine. The Dreamtreader turned toward the creature. It appeared high above the tree canopy like an unstoppable tidal wave, filling his vision with that gnarled, leathery flesh and those beady red eyes.

  Archer leaped for the bank of the creek and slipped. He skidded awkwardly like a puppy on a tile floor, gave up, and sprinted up the creek bed. Another stone tower came crashing down just inches away. Archer winced and jumped at the thunderous impact, but there was no more looking up or back. He had to hope and pray that the falling stone wouldn’t just suddenly crush him. He had to keep running.

  “Razz, I could really use some help here!” Archer yelled as he ran. “I can’t see above this creek bed. I don’t know where I’m going!” When she didn’t appear, Archer wasn’t exactly surprised, but he was disappointed. Razz tended to stick to her convictions. If she thought a certain course of action was stupid or reckless, she stayed away.

  Another stone tower crashed through the forest somewhere to Archer’s right. Reflexively, he bounced to the left, slamming into the creek bank again. The paravore’s roar sounded closer than ever. Archer kept running but risked a look. The monster’s clawed foot slammed into another pillar of stone. The shadow of the great beast loomed above.

  Archer stepped on something that wasn’t mud or pebbles. That “something” gave a strange crackling beneath his feet, and then Archer tripped. He went face-first into the gravelly mud, flopped over like a fish out of water, and looked back.

  Sitting in an uneven circle around what appeared to be the ruins of a picnic lunch of gigantic steamed crayfish were a crowd of little blue people. Tripols, he thought. Just like Razz said.

  With bulbous, angled eyes of blue glass, they glared at Archer and had their floppy, wing-shaped ears pinned back tensely. Archer realized with sudden clarity that he had been the cause of their lunch’s ruin. He hadn’t been looking and had apparently stepped right in the middle of their food.

  “Uhm . . . sorry about that!” Archer said, clambering to his feet. “But, uh, you guys might want to get out of here. There’s a really big—”

  Archer never finished the sentence. The paravore’s foot came down through the forest canopy and bombed into the space between Archer and the Tripols. He heard a chorus of warbling shrieks and hoped the little guys hadn’t been flattened. Somehow that thought made Archer mad. Boiling mad.

  “Enough of this!” he growled, summoning what was left of his will to create. He reached back over his shoulder. His hand came back with his favorite sword, a broad-bladed long sword modeled after the versatile blades used by the Vikings. But Archer’s sword had a little something extra: when he cried out, a blue fire rushed up from the hilt and engulfed the blade.

  “I have got to get a name for this sword!” he exclaimed.

  He lunged toward the paravore’s foot and thrust the blade into the flesh just behind its nearest talon. The beast shrieked in pain, pulling back. The for
ce of the creature yanking its foot out of the creek bed flung Archer upward into the trees, but the sword was still embedded deep in the monster’s foot.

  Somehow the creature’s fury helped crystallize Archer’s thought. Finally, he had enough concentration to go airborne once more. He leaped up out of the tree, blasted through the dense canopy, and almost flew directly into the paravore’s mouth. Archer careened off an upper jaw tusk and cartwheeled twice in the air before regaining flight control enough to swerve out of mouthful distance.

  He felt his will dwindling, but he had to stay ahead of the creature enough to find Nick’s tower perch. With the paravore pouncing just behind, Archer moved evasively, darting around and behind the stone towers. He dove skyward to get a look and then plummeted again to avoid the creature’s eye lance.

  It was on one of the sudden ascents that he spotted the high stone turret where Nick waited with his bow. The paravore screeched and another stone tower fell. Archer turned and hovered, then launched a series of blazing fireballs at the creature’s already singed ear. The beast reared on its hind legs and searched for Archer.

  “I’m only going to have enough left for one more pass,” Archer muttered. “Nick, I hope you’re paying attention!”

  Archer positioned himself directly between the beast and Nick’s stone tower. Finally fixing its stare on Archer, the paravore careened through the forest and other turrets. Archer watched the eye lance striking one tower after another—evidenced by bursts of steam and shattered stone—coming at him swiftly. He dodged to his left and sheltered behind the thickest tower remaining. The paravore did not relent. It roared and charged. The jaws gaped wide. Its eye lance swept just over Archer’s head.

  The paravore pounced, a red-eyed colossal wrecking ball, coming straight for the stone tower and Archer hiding behind it. Archer had a little will left, but not enough for flying. Not knowing what else to do, he clambered up the stone. With the concussive footfalls and the roars of the beast so near, it felt like climbing a ladder into a thunderstorm. He braced himself for the impact.

  There was a sudden, frightening silence. The paravore’s gaping maw thrust out from the other side of the tower behind Archer. The Dreamtreader yelped and tried to clamber away but had nowhere to go. Then the creature’s face went slack, and its head lurched, banging clumsily into the stone a foot from Archer’s clinging hand. The red light in its eyes had gone out and the very last bit of an arrow shaft and its fletching protruded from one dead eye.

  The paravore’s face slid down the tower. Its body crumpled near the bottom and crashed sideways onto the forest floor. The creature’s legs twitched for a moment and then went still. Archer clung to his stone turret and heard two very strange sounds: one was a chorus of warbling cheers from the forest below. These apparently belonged to the Tripols. Archer watched as dozens of the little people clambered up onto the dead paravore.

  Razz was right, Archer thought. Those Tripols really will eat anything.

  The second sound was something that reminded Archer of the old Tarzan jungle scream, an almost operatic yell of triumph and sheer ferocity that ended in “HOOROOO!”

  TWELVE

  A WAKE-UP CALL

  NICK. IT HAD TO BE. ARCHER CHECKED HIS MENTAL reserve. It was very low, but enough to power a few tower-to-tower leaps. He launched into the air and propelled himself toward the highest tower, the Hunter’s Stone. Archer at last dropped down next to an exultant Nick Bushman.

  “Bonzer, mate!” Nick cried out, clasping Archer’s shoulder. “We dropped that bitzer at last! I owe you heaps!”

  “Just keep your promise,” Archer said. “We need to get you to understand that you’re dreaming. You need to become a Dreamtreader.”

  Nick swiped away some of the branches and leaves that still clung to his strange outfit. Archer could see his face much better now. He was older than Archer had thought. Thirty, maybe more. His face was leathery and creased but most likely from care and wear over the years. He had three almost perfect triangles of hair on his face: two slanted eyebrows and one below his bottom lip. And his hair, still mingled with twigs and leaves, was spiked, with a tall mohawk crest leaning in the center.

  Nick’s eyes darted to the side. His expression changed from exultant to fretful. “I . . . uh, have to fess up, Archer,” Nick said. “I know I’m dreamin’.”

  “You what?” Archer spluttered.

  “Well, I should say I suspected it pretty strongly.”

  “But . . . you said—”

  “Fact is, you kind of confirmed things once and for all, but I needed your help. I’m sorry, mate, but time was short, the paravore was upon us, and I just didn’t know what to do.”

  Archer chomped down on the first comment that leaped into his mind. He remembered all too well the rash decisions he’d made under the pressure of time and danger. Speaking of time, Archer looked over his shoulder. Less than an hour remained.

  Archer finally found the right words. “Look, Nick,” he said, “when there’s time, we’ll need to talk about this again. Dreamtreaders have to be able to trust each other. But in the meantime, I need to know just what you know about your abilities and dreaming.”

  “Right then,” Nick said, scratching at the patch of whiskers beneath his lower lip. “So for years, I knew I could dream things when I wanted to. Loads of fun. And I met Taddy; cute little guy knew me. And he kept showing up in my dreams, so I figured something was up.” Nick’s eyes clouded. “Then that paravore beast showed up, took Taddy away. I grieved for months, mate. Strangest thing, being that I only knew him from my dreams. But I’ve put that beast in the dunnie at last. And I’ve got you to thank for it. You’ve got the truth from me and my friendship from here on. And that’s fair dinkum, count on it.”

  “Fair dinkum?” Archer asked.

  “Eh, it’s the most honest and genuine kind of a pledge,” Nick explained.

  “Oh,” Archer replied. “Got it. Well, first thing I can tell you is that your ability to dream things at will is a talent very few people have. It’s a gift. You were born to be a Dreamtreader, Nick, and this world of dreams is a lot more complex that you’ve ever . . . uh . . . well, dreamed. But realizing you’re dreaming is only part of waking you up as a full-powered Dreamtreader.”

  “Right. What else do I need to do?”

  “It’s different for each Dreamtreader,” Archer explained slowly. “But I have—had—a scroll that told me how to wake you up. We need to follow the winding path to something called the ever-swaying tree.”

  “I know it,” Nick said. “I know right where it is.”

  Archer exhaled. “Can we get there in twenty minutes or less?”

  “Sure thing,” Nick said. “You fly, right?”

  “Yeah, but I’m toast. I couldn’t fly now more than a few feet.”

  “No worries,” Nick said. “We’ll go my way.”

  “What’s your way?” Archer asked.

  “Oh, you’ll like this,” Nick said. He put his fingers to his mouth and let loose a trilling whistle that echoed off the nearby canyon walls.

  “What are we . . .” A broad shadow loomed overhead. A fierce wind nearly knocked Archer from the stone platform.

  Magnificent pure-white paws clutched Archer’s shoulders and lifted him into the air.

  “Whoa, hey!” Archer cried out.

  “It’s all right,” Nick said, being lifted similarly from the platform. “They’re friends.”

  Archer looked up and saw the wind-streaked mane of a huge lion, only this lion was the pristine white of arctic snow . . . and it had wings. Massive eagle-type wings. Griffin? Archer thought. Sphinx? He couldn’t remember which one had a bird head or a lion head, if either one. It really didn’t matter. These flying white lions were cool. And fast.

  The majestic creatures airlifted Archer and Nick over the forest, over the vast silvery webs of the spiders in the treetops. Glad I didn’t try going in that way, he thought. Soon, their speed and altitude took away fine deta
ils like the spiderwebs. The terrain below became a quilt of earthy colors. Far ahead but growing rapidly closer, Archer saw a misty mountain wrapped in a treacherously winding path.

  “Snot rockets, these things are fast!” Archer cried out. He dangled beneath the flying lion and blinked at the rush of air.

  “The valkaryx are a real ripsnorter, right?!” Nick called back. “Now where do ya want them to drop us?”

  “Drop us?”

  “No, mate, not like that. Set us down’s what I mean. Kinda.”

  “Kinda?” Archer said, feeling his cheeks reddening. “I can see the winding path, but we don’t have time to follow it. Can the valkaryx take us to the ever-swaying tree?”

  “Of course they can,” Nick replied. He shouted a series of words and sounds that Archer didn’t understand. “Rak-ta, Shak-ta, soonerian, tre aborandum, ne!”

  Immediately, the valkaryx banked right and accelerated toward the mountain. Archer reflexively grabbed ahold of its paws and hung on. As they closed on the mountains, Archer noted a very small tree growing up from its peak. But, closer still, Archer realized he’d misunderstood the scale. The mountain was much bigger than he’d thought. Colossal, really. The “little” tree was actually a towering giant. The trunk was narrow and full of odd bends and curves. There were branches aplenty, each ending with patches of glistening silver leaves. And the tree was indeed swaying.

  The valkaryx swooped a swift spiral down to the base of the tree and lightly placed Archer and Nick in a cleft of the peak. The noble white pair landed nearby and folded their wings behind their broad shoulders.

  Nick bowed to them and said, “Gratis, Rak-ta, Shak-ta. Te bonis trel esse.”

  The valkaryx with the longest mane made a rumbly growling sound and stamped its paw once.

  “I heard you speak like that when we were flying,” Archer said. “You can talk to them, can’t you?”

  “Yeah, the words just come, but only in the Dream. Doesn’t seem to matter the creature. They understand, and I understand them.”