Dormia (13 page)

"So," said the vice admiral, "ya want to come along with Shamus and me and check the place out?"

Alfonso nodded excitedly.

"Fine then," said the vice admiral. "Just stick close to us—real close."

***

An hour or so later, the vice admiral, Shamus, and Alfonso readied themselves to leave the ship. Hellen would stay behind to watch over things. Hill and Bilblox were both fast asleep in the windmill. Bilblox was sleeping off the aftereffects of the powder and Hill was recovering from the nasty blow that he'd taken to the head. Alfonso had tried to wake them, but neither of them batted an eye.

As usual, Shamus was complaining under his breath, but this time, he had good reason. On his back was a large wooden trunk that the vice admiral had instructed him to carry. It appeared to be about as big as he was, and it probably weighed more than he did. Alfonso knew better than to ask what was in
the trunk. In fact, it was best to pretend that the trunk and the contraband it contained were not even there.

With the
Success Story
snugly lashed to two ice boulders, the vice admiral lowered the ship's gangplank onto a narrow shelf of ice jutting out from the iceberg. The three of them made their way across the gangplank to the slippery ice shelf. A bitter wind whistled across the ice and chilled them almost immediately, despite their thick winter coats.

"I hate this part," muttered Shamus. "It's always me carrying this trunk on the slippery ice and, of course, I'm never moving fast enough—"

"Quit yer complainin'," said the vice admiral. "We're lucky to get a break from Hellen's cooking."

Taking quick, deliberate steps, the vice admiral led the way along the narrow shelf until she came to a crevice where someone had carved a perfectly formed set of stairs into the ice. The stairs led down several hundred feet into the mouth of a large cave, which was marked by two burning torches.

The three of them descended the icy stairs, into the cave, and continued down a narrow tunnel that burrowed deep into the iceberg. The tunnel was lined with torches, so it was possible to see, but just barely. They walked in silence for several minutes. Then, rather faintly, Alfonso heard what sounded like a fiddle. Its soft, haunting melody echoed dully along the ice. He soon heard another sound: a constant, low-level roar of water. These two sounds grew louder and louder until the three of them emerged into a giant underground cavern in which several dozen people were sitting at tables made of ice. They all appeared to be drinking out of frosty glass mugs and having a
good time. The center of the room featured a giant waterfall that rushed down from a hole in the ceiling. The water filled a large pool and then snaked through the room via a quickly moving stream. In the stream at least a dozen penguins and a few baby walruses splashed about. Several ice bridges crossed the stream at various points.

The cavern was decorated with a number of massive, twenty-foot ice sculptures of fierce-looking men toting swords. Near the base of the waterfall was a bar, where waiters dressed in black-fur jackets poured drinks and scurried to and fro with overflowing trays filled with slimy, stinky-smelling fish dishes. Next to the kitchen was a large elevated stage, also made of ice, where a band of fiddlers was finishing a slow, doleful tune that sounded like a lullaby. When the band finished, the lead fiddler struck up a new, faster-paced tune and his fellow fiddlers joined in. The entire cavern was soon echoing with the sound of clapping as everyone rose to their feet and began to dance on the icy tabletops. A good number of these dancers fell immediately, crashing down onto the floor in wild tumbles, but a handful of the more talented dancers kicked their legs up toward the ceiling and spun around with perfect precision. One of the dancers was a plump redheaded woman dressed in a one-piece snowsuit made of fine white fur.

The vice admiral, Shamus, and Alfonso just stood there, overwhelmed by the spectacle. Shamus was wearing a most uncommon smile on his face, and his cheeks were flushed a deep red. "Oh my goodness, I haven't heard this tune in years," he mumbled. "I should like to join in the merriment and dance a jig with that fetching redhead."

"Go ahead," said the vice admiral with a smile. "I'll take the chest from here. We'll meet back at the ship by midnight. That black ship is on our tail, and there's a full moon out tonight."

"Aye, aye, Vice Admiral," replied Shamus. He dropped the chest and walked quickly toward the redhead in the one-piece snowsuit. Soon he was dancing on the tabletop next to her. He was very skilled: he kicked his legs way up in the air and on every sixth kick he did a perfect backflip. A crowd soon gathered around his table.

"Wow," said Alfonso. "Shamus is really good!"

"Yes he is," said the vice admiral with a smile. "He'll be dancin' from now till midnight."

Together the vice admiral and Alfonso picked up the heavy trunk. They hauled it through a maze of tables, crossed the nearest ice bridge, and proceeded around the back of the waterfall. The sound of the roaring water drowned out the festivities. Here there were two windows carved into the ice. Above one of them, the word
supplies
was etched into the ice. Above the other were the words
We pay gold—no questions asked.
Alfonso and the vice admiral set down the trunk and walked up to the window marked
supplies.
Almost immediately, an attendant dressed in black fur appeared.

"Greetings. What can I get for you, Vice Admiral?" asked the attendant.

"Twen'y pounds of flour, ten pounds of sugar, four pounds of chocolate, six gallons of rum, thirty yards of heavy wool, two large plastic tarps, and, uh—" The vice admiral leaned closer and dropped her voice. "If ya have it, a good book with adventure, friendship, bloodshed, and, uh, a—a bit of romance."

"Not a problem," the attendant crisply replied. "Would you like these taken out to your ship?"

"'Course," said the vice admiral in a louder voice. "We don't plan to stay."

"And will you be doing business at the other window as well?"

"Indeed," she replied. The vice admiral then walked over to the
We pay gold—no questions asked
window and heaved her chest up onto the window's ledge. A moment later the same attendant appeared behind that window. He looked excited.

"What do you have?" asked the attendant. "Is it jewels? Oh, is it more of those rubies you brought just—"

"Hold your horses," interrupted the vice admiral. She turned to Alfonso. "All right, my friend," she said. "Why don't ya mosey on outta here. Ya remember the rules: I mind my business and ya mind yers. Now this may take a while. Sometimes I'm here hagglin' with these fools for hours. Go back into the main room and get somethin' to eat. Tell them to put it on the vice admiral's tab. Make sure not to leave the main room. I can't afford to have ya gettin' lost. We need to be outta here at midnight sharp. Got it?"

Alfonso nodded. "I'll be there."

"Good," she replied. "Now be gone with ya."

Alfonso headed back into the main room, found an empty table by the edge of the waterfall, and waited for someone to take his order. A few minutes later, a heavyset, middle-aged woman in a white-fur coat and a matching white-fur hat waddled over to Alfonso's table.

"Da name is Gertrude," said the woman. "What'll it be tonight, young sir?"

"What do you recommend?"

"Fried whale is always good," said Gertrude. "Most of the fellas always seem to order that, often with a side of baked walrus, and some reindeer sausages for dessert."

"Great," said Alfonso with a forced smile.

While waiting for his food to arrive, Alfonso returned to a puzzle he had recently become obsessed with: the necklace that his mother had given him back in Fort Krasnik. He reached into his shirt, unfastened the necklace, and held the wood medallion in his hand. Alfonso studied it carefully.

The numbers at the bottom were clearly a code. Leif, like his son, loved riddles and always had books on codes lying around the house. Initially, Alfonso suspected that his dad had constructed a very simple code where each of the numbers stood for a letter such as 1 =
A,
2 =
B,
3 =
C,
4 =
D,
and so on. But this didn't work, because it spelled

FQKTSXT

JJU JJU PJJ

Obviously, it meant nothing, or at least nothing Alfonso could understand. Clearly, the hand with the + on the palm had something to do with the code. But what was the connection?

Alfonso glanced up to see if his food was coming, but the waitress was nowhere in sight. He returned his attention to the medallion. What did the hand mean? Or maybe it was the fingers? What did the fingers mean? It was just an ordinary hand with five fingers, except that the palm had a plus sign.

Wait a minute, thought Alfonso. What if the hand and plus sign went together and they meant "plus five"? Alfonso then returned to his original idea in which each of the numbers at the bottom of the medallion stood for a letter. But this time, he added five to each number in the sequence so that the starting point was actually 6 and not 1. What if the code went as follows: 6 = A, 7 = B, 8 = C, 9 = D, and so on? Alfonso took a pencil and a scrap of paper from his pocket and wrote out a whole chart. It looked like this:

When he applied this code to the medallion, Alfonso leapt up in excitement. The entire message, including the
you are
at the top read:

YOU ARE

ALFONSO

EEP EEP KEE

This had to be right. After all, his father had written his name in code! The only remaining question was: what on earth did
eep eep kee
mean?

A
LFONSO CONTINUED
staring at the wooden medallion until the waitress, Gertrude, arrived at his table with a large silver platter of seafood. There was enough food on the platter to feed the entire crew of the
Success Story
for a week. The whale and walrus dishes were thoroughly disgusting—the very smell was enough to make Alfonso want to vomit—but the reindeer sausages weren't bad and he did his best to eat them. When nobody was looking, he threw the rest of the food to a few nearby penguins, who feasted on it happily. This turned out to be a bad idea, because soon Alfonso found himself surrounded by a dozen or so hungry penguins. When it became clear that he had nothing left to give them in the way of food, the
penguins began to close in on him and peck at his legs. Gertrude waddled over and tried to shoo the penguins away.

"Didn't you see the sign?" asked an annoyed Gertrude. She pointed to a small wooden sign by the edge of the stream that read:

"Sorry," said Alfonso sheepishly. In that instant, one of the penguins closed its beak around the chain of the medallion, which was still dangling from his hand. In the next instant, the penguin was scurrying away at top speed, with the medallion in its mouth.

"Hey!" yelled Alfonso.

Gertrude tried to intercept the little bird, but it simply made a quick turn and headed over to one of the nearby ice bridges instead. Alfonso jumped to his feet and raced after the penguin.

"Hey!" yelled Alfonso. "He's got my medallion!"

"Forget it," called Gertrude. "You'll never get it back." Alfonso ignored her. He chased the penguin down the length of the main room and into a large ice tunnel that was lit with a series of torches. The penguin was surprisingly fast and Alfonso had to sprint hard to keep up with it. The penguin, sensing that it was being hunted, turned off the main tunnel and proceeded down a smaller side tunnel. Alfonso followed. The penguin made several more turns. After the sixth or seventh such turn, the bird disappeared. Alfonso stopped and looked around. The light had become dim, but something on the floor stood out against the ice. It was the medallion! The penguin must have dropped it. Alfonso felt elated as he picked up the
medallion and hung it around his neck. He sighed with contentment and started back, but suddenly he realized that nothing looked familiar.

After a few minutes of walking, he came upon a large octagonal room he had never seen before. He walked to the center of the room and looked around. There were eight ice tunnels to choose from, and they all looked the same. Panic began to pulse through Alfonso's veins. He realized he was completely lost.

For the next hour, Alfonso walked into each of the eight tunnels to try to find a way back, but his efforts were fruitless. He returned to the octagonal room and sank down next to an icy wall. He felt like crying. How would he get back to the
Success Story?
He wouldn't. It was as simple as that. He was lost. Miserably lost. And no one would ever find him.
Why had he fed the penguins? Why had he left the main room?
These were very stupid things he had done. Alfonso slumped down even further and burrowed his head into his jacket. Just then, however, he heard something in the distance: footsteps. It was clear they were coming toward him from one of the tunnels.