“So three days,” Doc Scoville muttered as he scribbled on the notepad once more. “If we position the anchors correctly, it should push the magnetic fields back.”
“What happens after three days?” Archer asked.
The room grew very quiet. Kaylie frowned, Rigby’s eyes seemed to glaze over, and Doc Scoville said, “In three days, the earth’s magnetic field will be set in its normal position.”
“But you said it moves all the time,” Archer said.
“It moves a little, but not like it has with the Rift. The thing’s all out of whack, but it’s still swinging with the Rift’s initial push. If we wait past the three days, we’ll still be able to move it, but we won’t have the momentum from the Rift. We’ll never push it far enough. The Rift and all its consequences will become permanent.”
“As in there’ll be nothing we can do?” Archer asked.
Rigby rolled his eyes. “As in the normal meaning of permanent, Keaton.”
“Let’s not think that way,” Doc Scoville said. “It’s simply a deadline.”
“We can do this,” Kaylie said. “Archer? Do you hear? Anchor Protocol is going to work. Archer?”
But Archer didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. He was no longer aware of anyone in that room. A high shriek had pierced his consciousness, followed by a regal, melodious voice, speaking in a language Archer at first did not understand.
Te voxis, Kae-ah-tohn. Te voxis borundum entrar mil se bonis. Skandar belli, skandar vin thel te mourna xivis . . .
It was an unearthly language, proudly spoken, but desperate to be understood. Archer trembled, gasped, and then convulsed so terribly he fell out of the chair. As he thrashed about on the cold floor, at last he began to understand the message.
THIRTY-SEVEN
WHISPERS AND FLAME
“THESE NUMBERS,” KARA SAID, FLIPPING BACK AND FORTH through the packet Frederick had given her. “Are these right? We have that many people coming in?”
“Baltimore is a large city,” Frederick replied, gesturing with a sweep of his arm to the vast metropolis beyond the window glass. He sat on the edge of the conference table, adjusted his ever-dark sunglasses, and said, “Six hundred thousand people and counting—there’s bound to be a healthy supply.”
Kara frowned and tilted her head. A ribbon of her silky black hair swung down over her eyes like a pendulum. With a curt wave of the hand, she tossed it back, and said, “But there are fifteen hundred names here.”
“Not enough?”
“More than enough,” Kara replied incredulously. “Far higher than our initial projections. Can we treat them all in time?”
Frederick whipped out his phone. “We’re already at 66 percent,” he replied. “Thanks to Mr. Bezeal.”
Kara shook her head in amazement, both at this extraordinary news . . . and at Frederick’s calling her merchant MisterBezeal. “He is kind of a miracle worker,” she said. “When can we expect full strength?”
He didn’t answer right away but scrolled on his phone, his fingers swishing back and forth as if he were tracing an inverted cross. “By tomorrow morning,” he said. “At the latest.”
“I want to see them,” Kara said.
“Let’s go,” Frederick replied, springing off the table. “I think you’ll be pleased.”
Archer stopped convulsing. He lay very still and lost any concept of where he was. “Archer, Archer! Please wake up!” came a voice.
Archer felt movement around his body. Someone said, “Nephew?”
“It wasn’t me!” someone exclaimed. “I didn’t do anything!”
In a warbling storm of sound, the world came back to Archer. He coughed, spat, and tried to sit up.
“Easy, Archer,” Doc Scoville cautioned.
“No, can’t,” Archer coughed. “Nick . . . I . . . the valkaryx . . .”
“What? Keaton, you’re not making any sense.”
Archer blinked. “Help . . . help me up.” Rigby and Doc Scoville each took one of Archer’s arms. Kaylie hovered around like a mother hen.
“I know of the valkaryx,” Doc Scoville muttered. “Majestic creatures in the Dream.”
“No,” Archer said. “Here. They survived the Rift, at least Nick’s pair did. Rock and Shock, he calls them.”
“What happened to you, Archer?” Kaylie asked, a worried quiver still in her voice.
He looked at her. “I . . . I don’t know exactly. But Rock and Shock, they found Nick at the Dream Tower but couldn’t get to him, couldn’t rescue him. They could speak to him, though. And through them, Nick . . . he sent us a message.”
“Well, out with it, lad!” Doc Scoville said. “Honestly, you’ve gone ghost-pale, Archer. What was Nick’s message?”
Archer blinked. “Kara knows where we are,” he said. “She’s tracked us somehow.”
“Magnetic signature,” Doc Scoville mumbled.
“Gotta be,” Rigby confirmed.
“She’s building an army,” Archer whispered, “not to capture us but to wipe us out.”
Kaylie’s hands flew to her lips. “Oh!”
“It’s worse than that,” Archer muttered. “Kara and Bezeal are going to do something to Nick . . . something . . . I don’t know, something that turns him against us. They’re going to use Nick as a weapon against us.”
Kara’s private elevator dropped below Research and Development and came to a gentle stop at the recently repaired section of the shaft in the region she called Beneath. It was a gaping, open space with an arched, stalactite-ridden ceiling hidden in shadows far overhead. The Karakurian Chamber was there, as was her throne. It was her area. But it is no longer private, is it?she thought. Bezeal knows. The blasted Dreamtreaders know. Rigby and his uncle know. And now Frederick knows.
But when the elevator doors opened, Kara quickly realized a few more people were now aware of the Beneath. An army of fifteen hundred was now using the cavern as a mustering point. Even more were on the way.
The vast chamber lay in a shadow, but the soldiers were unmistakable. “Breathtaking,” Kara whispered.
Frederick smirked. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“Take the stage,” he said, gesturing forward. “Bezeal told me he left you something on your throne that will be of interest to you . . .”
Kara raised an eyebrow and strode toward the mass of soldiers. When she stepped within ten feet of them, the entire troop came to simultaneous attention. In unison, they made a quarter turn inward and opened a six-foot aisle for Kara. As she marched between them, Kara couldn’t help but marvel at her army.
They were outfitted in armor that looked equal parts medieval and science fiction. It gleamed as if it were made of black glass but had some kind of beveling on the surface, giving it depth and weight. Each warrior wore a bulbous oval helm, connected by thin tubes that disappeared over an articulated mantle of shoulder plates. Futuristic weapons crisscrossed each warrior’s breastplate. Additional guns, rifles, blades, and blunt objects were attached at each soldier’s hips and again at their thighs.
Every third warrior possessed some kind of pike weapon, something Kara couldn’t readily identify. They were a little too thick to be spears, a little too long to be staffs, and they weren’t tapered like jousting lances. And yet there was still something very menacing about them. Kara made a mental note to ask Bezeal later.
She strode up the stairs to the waiting stage. Odd. Bezeal must have redesigned the space in here. The stage area and the stairs were all new. Her throne had a much higher vantage now. She stared out over the soldiers, amazed at how silent they could all be. Of course, they were under the influence of a rather concentrated dose of gort, a dose they’d all willingly taken, thinking it was medicine to relieve their Rift disorientation.
Kara stopped suddenly, gaping at the object that lay on her seat. It was curled in a tight spiral like a sleeping snake. But Kara knew it was far more powerful and dangerous than any serpent. It was a
thick whip made of braided strips of dark leather that might have once been the color of rust, but through use and staining, had turned dark but for its orangey fringes. Perhaps three inches down its baton-sized handle it tapered around and around in the coil. A tiny skull of glistening copper was affixed there. It was eighteen feet of coiled malice, and Kara knew its name.
“Vorcaust,” she whispered, taking up the baton handle. “The Tongue of Fire.”
The moment she allowed it to uncoil to its full length, she felt a whoosh!Crimson fire raced along its entire length, but it did not burn her hand. This was meant for others, for control. Swooning with power from the weapon that had once belonged to the Nightmare Lord himself, Kara lifted the fiery whip and slashed it through the air. The resulting crack shattered the silence.
All at once, the helms, shoulders, and breastplates of all fifteen hundred warriors flared to life with a spectral, molten light. It was as if Vorcaust had spat liquid flame upon the armor, for it did not flicker or lick up like fire. It pulsed, dimming slowly to almost nothing, and then flaring once more.
Kara flicked her whip again. The soldiers, so well-equipped, raised their lances high, and the molten light danced eerily from weapon to weapon like webs of melted steel.
“Tonight we are strong!” Kara cried out, “Tomorrow, when the rest of our army has come, we will be unstoppable. And tomorrow . . . we go to war!”
The lights flickered overhead. Nick had been strapped down to some kind of medical table and left for what felt like hours. But now he was no longer alone.
“Dreamtreader, Dreamtreader, caught in a trap, what a surprise to fall into our lap. Tell me, how does it feel to have your power sapped?”
“Bezeal!” Nick yelled, struggling at the restraints that with his normal Dreamtreader strength he should have been able to snap like rubber bands. Now, he couldn’t. Something was keeping his will in check. The bonds held him tight. “Ya blasted shark bait, what have you done to me?”
Bezeal did not answer, but the tip of his hood bobbed up and down at the edges of the table. There came a series of metallic clicks, and then a long whirring sound.
Gray, sloping panels descended from the ceiling. Seemingly made from some sort of fibrous material, the irregularly shaped, geometric pieces came together to form a solid rectangular surface just inches above Nick’s face. Additional panels clicked into place at forty-five degree angles to his shoulders. The shape wasn’t quite the same, but Nick felt as if he’d been put into a coffin.
“Bezeal,” Nick growled, “you don’t need to do this, this . . . whatever it is. You’re not a monster. Dooley, ya gotta let me out of here.”
“Quiet now, quiet oh Dreamtreader prone. You’ve entered into my whispering zone. In moments your will shall be mine to own.”
A thump startled Nick and echoed away. “Bezeal! Stop this, ya rash bludger!” There came a rasping sound. It seemed to circulate around him . . . a shushing, undulating murmur of hissing breath. “Bezeal! No! If I ever get out of this, I’ll come for you! No, no!”
Nick began to thrash wildly. It felt like ten thousand ants were crawling all over him—on his arms, his face, beneath his clothing.
Bezeal’s Cheshire cat grin appeared suddenly by Nick’s face. “Listen to the whispers,” he said. “Just listen . . . to the whispers.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
THE READY ROOM
“WHAT DO WE DO? ” KAYLIE ASKED.
“We defend ourselves,” Rigby replied. “We’ll make our own army.”
Archer didn’t reply. It wasn’t that he had nothing to say, but at the moment he didn’t trust himself to say anything at all without further thought. The wheels of his mind spinning, he gazed around the table in the part of the laboratory Rigby called the Ready Room. It was a round, low-ceilinged chamber with a central meeting table, two computer workstations, and enough flat-screen monitors on the walls to encircle the room completely. It reminded Archer of the kind of room in the movies the president always went to when he had to talk to generals and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to try to prevent World War III. If only it were that simple.
Doc Scoville sat nearest the door, his eyes glued to the tablet computer he held. Kaylie seemed to be lecturing Patches on something, gesturing animatedly and making a variety of facial expressions. Rigby had his palms flat on the table, and his eyes seemed to be bulging.
“Well?” Rigby asked. “Isn’t anyone going to respond to my idea?”
“I’ve got it,” Archer said. “I know what we have to do.”
“Well,” Doc Scoville replied, “out with it, then.”
Archer leaned forward and said, “We need to make an army.”
Rigby rolled his eyes. “Earth to Keaton: that was my idea ten seconds ago.”
“No,” Archer said. “Not like that. Not with gort. We aren’t going to put innocent people in harm’s way even if, in the end, it’s to help mankind.”
Rigby shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Well, what do you mean then?”
“I mean . . . we literally need to make an army. We’ll use our collective mental will and create warriors to fight, ones that won’t hurt anyone.”
Rigby made a face as if he’d just eaten a bug. “It’s a war, Keaton,” he said. “People are going to get injured. People die.”
“But not from our end,” Archer said. “We can equip our soldiers with some kind of stun weapon. Something like a Taser, but stronger.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Rigby grumbled.
“No, it’s not,” Kaylie said. “I know how to do it too.”
“’ow do you know?” Rigby asked.
“It’s what I did to the guard in the elevator at Kara’s fortress-thingy. I happified him.”
“’appified?” Rigby echoed.
“Oh,” Doc Scoville said, “I remember now. The guard with the goofy look on his face. You did that?”
Kaylie nodded vigorously. “Nick hit his guy with a boomerang, but didn’t wanna hurt anyone.”
“That’s exactly the kind of thing we want,” Archer said.
“Kara’s going to wipe the floor with us,” Rigby muttered. “And you can bet she won’t be happifying anyone. She’ll be playing for blood. She’ll kill us all, and we’ll never fix the Rift.”
Archer squinted. “She’s really that strong?”
“She threw an entire cavern floor at me,” Rigby muttered. “And I got the feeling she was just warming up.”
That silenced Archer for a few moments. Rigby wasn’t the type to show his fear openly of . . . well . . . anything. Kaylie and Doc Scoville were backing him up, so clearly Kara had become a force with which to be reckoned. Archer didn’t understand it. After the Rift, Kara should have grown stronger the way everyone else did. How did she manage to get supercharged? Before we tangle,Archer thought, I’d better find out.
“Time’s wasting, Archer,” Doc Scoville said. “The test results here are extraordinarily promising, but we’ve still got many variables to analyze.”
“Okay,” Archer said. “But you think we can do it? You think we can repair the Rift?”
“I do,” he said. “I’ve been tinkering with calculations, but I think Kaylie’s Anchor Protocol will work. If we put all our power together at certain strategic points, we may be able to push the earth’s electromagnetic fields back to their original position before the Rift occurred.”
“Okay,” Archer replied, nodding slowly. “Okay, so here’s the plan: Doc Scoville’s on the technical stuff. He’ll get the Rift repair details all figured out. Rigby and Kaylie, think you two can dream up an army?”
“Of course,” Rigby replied. “I’ll fix up a wicked bunch of warriors.”
“Just not too wicked,” Archer cautioned. Rigby sighed, but Archer continued. “What about you, Kaylie?”
“I’m going to make a Patches army,” she said. “And they’ll happify everything Kara throws at us.”
“Excellent,” Archer said. “You guys might want to fortify Scovi
lle Manor too. Make it as hard as possible for Kara.”
“Wait a minute,” Rigby said. “’ow come you get to call the shots?”
Archer sighed. “Look, is it a good plan or not?”
Rigby shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“Fine, then.”
“But, Archer,” Kaylie said, “what are you going to be doing?”
“I need to talk to Master Gabriel,” Archer replied. “Something’s been bugging me, especially now. And . . . I want to check on Dad and Buster . . . Amy and her mom.”
“Say hi to Gabe for me,” Kaylie said brightly.
“I will,” he said, shaking his head. Gabe . . .
“Wait,” Rigby said. “I feel like we should make a contract or something. Something to make our partnership official. You know, like a pact?” Rigby held out his hand to Archer.
The chill Archer felt blasted his memory back to another handshake offered. “No,” Archer said firmly. “I’m through with pacts. Let’s just do our jobs.”
In a flurry of spiraling sparkles of blue and white, Master Gabriel appeared just outside of Archer’s closet. “Ah, Archer,” he said. “What have you discovered?”
“It is three days,” Archer replied. “Old Jack was right. We have three days to repair the Rift or it becomes permanent.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Doc Scoville, Rigby, and Kaylie did all the calculations,” Archer explained. “It has something to do with magnetic fields, but I’m letting them handle that part.”
Master Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “You and Kaylie are working with Rigby and his uncle? Happily?”
Archer shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that, but I don’t see any other way.”
Master Gabriel said, “I must confess I had hoped it would be so.”
“You did?” Archer sat down hard on his bed. “Why?”