Archer listened intently to Amy at first, but soon Rigby’s smooth English wafted over. Archer glanced across the room and saw that, as usual, Rigby had a small crowd gathered around him. Dr. Pallazzo didn’t even say anything about the distraction. He just walked around nodding as if he were responsible for Rigby’s superior intellect.
Archer went back to the microscope. “So how come you’re not still following Rigby around?”
“I was never following him around,” Amy contested. “Not really. I mean, sure, he’s interesting, yep. And smart. And funny. And—”
“Forget I asked,” Archer said.
When the lab was over, Dr. Pallazzo ushered the students back to their desks and put a new slide up on the digital overhead projector: “Battle of the Brains.”
“What’s Battle of the Brains?” Garret McCormick asked.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” Gil Messchek said.
“Quiet,” Dr. Pallazzo commanded. “As you know, your final exam will be on June 2. It is a significant part of your grade. So to help you study, we will engage in mortal combat. Intellectually, that is.” He paused and gave a stack of papers to Kara to pass out. “This is your list of topics. You will challenge one another on any three.”
“Great,” Archer muttered to himself. He knew Chemistry but . . . to be tested against another student . . . in front of everyone in the class? That sounded like a recipe for humiliation.
But as the opponents chose each other, things went horribly wrong. Kara chose Bree Lassiter. Emy Crawford stole Amy right before Archer was about to claim her. Two by two, the students all paired off. No one seemed to want to challenge Rigby Thames.
Archer looked around for anyone else to oppose. There was Gil Messcheck, but that would be a mistake; he was one of Guzzy’s crew. Who else? A little more desperate now, Archer bounced from person to person. The only other one left was that girl who always smelled like cigarette smoke and had a screechy voice. What was her name? Felicia? Felicia Dudka? Or was it Dooda? He couldn’t recall.
That wouldn’t turn out well, Archer thought. No. That vice would drive me up a wall.
Dr. Pallazzo said, “That’s almost everyone. But will no one challenge Mr. Thames? How about you, Mr. Messcheck?”
Gil had apparently found something riveting on the floor to look at. He gave only the subtlest shake of the head. No.
Wait, Archer thought. What am I afraid of? Someone’s got to put this new hotshot in his place. Why not me? If I’m going to take down the Nightmare Lord, I ought to be able to handle Rigby.
Before his brain caught up to his mouth, Archer said, “I’ll do it!”
“Mr. Keaton?” Dr. Pallazzo said incredulously. “Are you sure?”
In his periphery, Archer saw Amy’s wide eyes. For some reason that emboldened him all the more. “I’m sure,” he said. “I think I match up pretty well with Sir Rigby, actually.”
Archer ignored the giggling in the room. Wouldn’t that be the day? he thought. If he could show up Rigby in front of everyone—in front of Kara—that would be, well . . . epic.
“Is this agreeable to you, Mr. Thames?” the teacher asked.
Rigby said nothing. He smirked and gave a subtle nod of the head.
“That leaves Mr. Messcheck and Miss Dutka.”
“Awww, mannnn!” Gil whined.
On the way out of Chemistry, Rigby Thames slid up close to Archer. “Oi, Keaton,” he said. “Bravo to you for challenging me. Better than most of the gutless wonders in there.”
“You’ll probably kill me,” Archer mumbled. He hadn’t expected any kind of approval from Rigby.
“Maybe,” Rigby said. “I do have advantages. I went to GIFT. And I had a semicrazy master chemist for an uncle. But you never know . . . underdogs are often fierce opponents. You seem like that type too.”
“Uh, thanks,” Archer said. “I guess.”
“So . . . what say we make this so-called Battle of the Brains a bit more interesting?” Rigby said, his voice friendly and eager.
“What do you mean?”
“A little wager,” he said. “Fancy that?”
“I don’t gamble,” Archer said.
“No, no,” he said. “Nothing like that. I had something in mind though. You have any chores you hate? I know I do. We have . . . er . . . quite a few pets. Feeding them and cleaning their cages is right vulgar, it is. Let’s say, if I win, you come over to my place, do that chore for me . . . for a week.”
“I dunno,” Archer said.
“Surely you’ve got some business your folks make you do, but you can’t stand it.”
One popped instantly to Archer’s mind. Ever since his mom died, there’d been a ton of new work for all of the kids. But one stood out as particularly hated. “Well, maybe . . .”
“That’s the spirit. What is it?”
“It’s laundry. I do the whole family’s laundry.”
“You don’t play around, do you?” Rigby said. “Right, then. You win, I’ll do laundry at your place for a week. I win, you’ve got my pet duty.”
“But not on Sundays,” Archer said. “We go to church on Sundays.”
“Church . . . how quaint.” Rigby rolled his eyes. “Ah, to each their own.” He held out his hand.
Remembering Bezeal, Archer hesitated for a moment. Stupid, he thought. Rigby’s not making a blood pact here. The two shook.
“Done and done!” Rigby started to walk away.
“Oh, hey,” Archer called, but Rigby held up a hand. He reached for his holster, yanked out his cell phone, and put it to his ear.
“What are you calling me at school for?” Rigby asked.
Archer had no earthly guess as to who might be on the other side of that call, but the way Rigby said the word you was nothing short of venomous.
Rigby turned sideways to Archer and walked away. Not meaning to eavesdrop, Archer couldn’t help but hear a little more of Rigby’s end of the conversation.
“. . . told you it’s going to cost a lot of money up front. Right, right. No . . . you don’t seem to understand. There’s nothing else . . .”
That was it. Archer heard nothing more. A few moments later, just before Archer disappeared into the gym, Kara caught up to him.
“Are you crazy, Archer?” she said. “Rigby will have you for lunch.”
“Thanks,” Archer said. “That’s nice.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I think I do.”
“Look,” Kara said, “I know you’re probably tired of Rigby’s new-kid cool routine. I am too. Kinda.”
“Are you?” Archer asked. “Could’ve fooled me. Word is, you’ve been spending a lot of time with him.”
“Have you been asking around?” Kara shot back.
“I’ve seen you two, Kara,” he said. “Just the other day, you were walking away from the bus arm in arm. What’s that about?”
Kara put her hands on her hips. “Archer Keaton, you sound jealous.”
“Jealous?” he echoed as if the word had just beamed down from another planet. “Why should I be jealous? We’ve hardly talked since the storm.”
“Don’t worry, Archer,” she said. “I’ve still got your back. But listen: Rigby is really, really smart. What are you going to do?”
Archer stopped at the locker room door. “Actually, I know what I’m going to do,” he said. “I have an ace in the hole.”
Kara looked at him strangely. “Your ace better have a degree in Chemistry.”
“Close enough,” Archer said. “But it’s going to cost me a lot of candy.”
THIRTEEN
A NEAR THING
“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 runni
ng. “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 t
he 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.