Dormia (18 page)

Eventually, the balloon jerked to a stop and quivered there, held in place only by the long, old rope that was connected to the ship. Alfonso prayed that the rope wouldn't snap. He stood up carefully and shivered as the fierce wind tore at his clothes. Dark gray clouds hovered just above the balloon. He took out his monoscope and looked over the vast field of ice and water below him. Instantly he knew that his task was next to impossible. Strips of ice zig-zagged everywhere across the open water, but there was no telling whether they were stable enough to support the weight of the ship.

At that moment, a terrifying gust of wind struck the balloon. Alfonso screamed as the wicker basket went sideways. He grabbed hold of a rope and felt his stomach drop. After swaying crazily for a few seconds, the basket steadied and Alfonso let out a sigh of relief. He sank to the floor of the basket and looked around in confusion. Everything was gone: his extra pair of gloves, a sandwich, the pencil, the pad of paper, and worst of all, the monoscope. Miserable and freezing cold, Alfonso buried his head in his hands.

He had failed.

Alfonso stared blankly at the wall of the basket. It had begun
to snow again, and through the holes in the wicker, Alfonso could see light flakes swirling around with the wind. In one area of the basket's wall, there was an opening just large enough for one flake at a time to squeeze inside. It reminded him of the narrowest part of the hourglass, which allowed only one particle of sand at a time to fall. Alfonso lifted his head. Maybe if he entered hypnogogia, he'd have a better chance of finding a route through the ice. But how could he enter that state? Of course, he could do the ten-second drill, but Bilblox wasn't around to interrupt him at the count of nine. He needed to improvise a new solution. Then it came to him.

Alfonso made himself as comfortable as possible in the bottom of the basket and began the count. At five, he raised his arms above his head; at six, he felt drowsy; at seven, his mind went blank; at eight, his entire body relaxed; and at nine, his arms flopped down to his side and smacked against his legs, giving him a good jolt. The jolt worked perfectly and Alfonso immediately entered hypnogogia.

Sensations flooded Alfonso's mind and, for a second, he felt both disoriented and nauseous. He was bombarded with stimuli of all kind—t he whistling of the wind, the creaking of the wicker basket, the smell of each burning chunk of coal, and the incredible, beautiful complexity of every snowflake as it fluttered past. He had to focus. He had to concentrate on the individual snowflakes as they shimmied through the minute hole in the wicker basket. With fierce determination, he did the same exact thing that he'd done with the hourglass: he focused on each particle as it squeezed through the narrow opening. He focused on snowflake after snowflake after snowflake—until his concentration was so tight that he felt as if all of his powers
of perception were being channeled into a single laser beam that he could point anywhere he wanted to. He was now ready to study the ice below.

When he finally peered over the side of the basket, Alfonso noticed the hundreds of paths that could be taken and, in the blink of an eye, he identified the three paths that spanned all the way across the water. Then he listened. He listened to the sound of the ice as it bent, creaked, and cracked. These soft, almost nonexistent sounds, which would mean nothing to a normal person, told the half-awake, half-asleep Alfonso exactly how thick each of the three paths were. He knew immediately that, of the three paths, the southernmost one was the best. No sooner had he made this realization than exhaustion passed over him like a wave. He grabbed the rope to tug on it, but it was too late. He slumped unconscious to the floor.

***

Below, on the ship's deck, everyone waited for the tug that never came. Finally, the vice admiral gave the order to pull in the balloon. Hill and Bilblox could barely breathe. What had happened?

The instant that the balloon touched down, both of them ran to the basket and carried Alfonso out. They checked his pulse. It was slow but steady. Alfonso was alive, although his skin was pale and cold to the touch. They rushed him inside.

That night, in the ship's mess, the mood at dinner was grim. Hill, Bilblox, Shamus, Hellen, and the vice admiral merely picked at their food. Alfonso lay asleep in a corner, on a cot,
wrapped in a cocoon of heavy wool blankets. He was now running a high fever and shivering uncontrollably. To make matters worse, Alfonso had returned without a map.

Bilblox eventually gave up on dinner. He wiped his mouth, stood up, and stumbled across the room to check on Alfonso. His eyes had become worse, and he had to grope with his hands to find his way. Very gently, Bilblox ran his hands over Alfonso to see if the boy was still shivering. "You better have a look at Alfonso," said Bilblox nervously. "There's something definitely wrong with him."

The entire party rushed over. Alfonso appeared to be fast asleep. His entire body was resting except for his right arm, which was extended up and fluttering wildly, like a bird caught on a string.

"Why's he doin' that?" asked Bilblox nervously. "What's wrong?"

"I have no idea," said Hellen. "It looks like his hand is having some kind of spasm."

"Darn it!" said the vice admiral. "I never should have sent him up there."

"No, wait, he's okay!" exclaimed Hill. "Get a pencil and paper!"

Hellen shot Hill a puzzled look, but indulged his request and found a stubby pencil and a piece of tissue paper lying in a drawer. Hellen handed both items to Hill.

"You got real paper?" he asked.

"I'll have to look for it," she said.

Hill shook his head. "No time—this will have to do." He tiptoed toward Alfonso and maneuvered the pencil into his grip. Hill then grabbed a serving tray, placed the tissue paper
on it, and moved it within range of Alfonso's outstretched arm. Immediately, Alfonso began to write. His movements were quick, but incredibly precise and so delicate that the tissue never tore. In less than a minute, he was done. The pencil fell from his grasp and his arm returned to his side. He began to snore softly.

Hill turned and presented the tissue to everyone else. It was clearly a route across a narrow pathway of ice—complete with latitude, longitude, and a small direction finder indicating north, south, east, and west.

"Holy smokestacks!" said Shamus.

"No jostlin'!" commanded the vice admiral. "One good breeze and that tissue is torn through." She took the tissue map from Hill and placed it safely within the pages of a nearby book, the massive
Advanced Encyclopedia of Surgical Practice,
1860 edition.

"Unbelievable," muttered the vice admiral. She then ordered Hellen and Shamus to prepare the ship. "We've got our route," she announced happily. "And we're leavin' tomorrow mornin' at first light."

***

The following day, Vice Admiral Purcheezie navigated the
Success Story
according to Alfonso's hand-drawn map. They crept through an intricate series of turns and twists, usually with water on both sides. By the time they successfully arrived back on the solid ice pack, everyone was exhausted and in no mood to celebrate, even though Alfonso had woken up and was feeling much better. With time, though, they began to relax. It was the start of a seven-day period of blissful monotony.

Although the temperature was still ferociously cold, the sun shone during the day, and at night the sky glowed with billions of stars. They marveled at the northern lights, which shimmered in the evening and put on shows that lasted for hours. Everybody went on the deck and stayed there despite the cold. Rays of light blue, green, purple, and orange twisted in front of them, appearing and reappearing like ghosts. It was magical. Alfonso had seen the northern lights before, but never like this, when they took over the entire night sky.

The only problem that cropped up during this time involved Bilblox's eyesight or lack thereof. He was steadily going blind. There were occasional moments when his vision returned, but those moments were becoming less frequent. Meanwhile, the vice admiral had exhausted every known remedy for snow blindness and none had worked. It was becoming increasingly apparent that Bilblox's condition was
not
related to the snow. It was undoubtedly the ash.

One evening, Alfonso returned to the windmill and discovered Bilblox crawling on the floor with Hill's magnifying glass in his hand.

"What are you doing?" asked Alfonso.

"Oh, uh, well, er, nothin'," stammered Bilblox. "My eyesight's come back for a few minutes, so I decided to look for somethin'."

"What were you looking for?" asked Alfonso.

Bilblox shrugged awkwardly.

"What is it?"

Bilblox sighed. "I'm lookin' to see if any of that purple ash
might still be around here, maybe stuck in the cracks or somethin'," said Bilblox. "I dunno, I figured it was worth a shot. Ya know, it might help my eyesight."

"I don't think that's such a good idea," said Alfonso cautiously. "I mean, you shouldn't use that powder anymore."

"Easy for ya to say," said Bilblox with a sigh. "Ya ain't the one who's goin' blind!"

***

At breakfast on their seventh day of steady sailing, the vice admiral announced they'd soon be leaving the pack ice. They were only two days steaming from Barsh-yin-Binder. The news jolted them. Reluctantly, their thoughts turned to Barsh-yin-Binder, the city that Shamus described as "evil to the core."

"Vice Admiral," said Bilblox, "is the city really as bad as they say it is?"

"Well," she replied, "it's a strange place, that's for sure. It's a former British colony so most of the folks speak English. Truth is, though, the British gave up on the place pretty quickly. There's nothin' to speak of in the city itself—nothing but trouble, backwards people, and a whole lot of thieves. Ya'll see soon enough. It's a place where time stopped 'round 1850. Ya won't find a radio, or a light bulb, or a single motor car in the whole city. The only good part is that the city's reputation scares away enough respectable types, so it's a good place for smugglers to meet and do a bit of business. That's the only reason I'm here."

The
Success Story
easily transitioned from the ice to the water, and two days later, in the early afternoon, they arrived just up the coast from Barsh-yin-Binder. For the first time in weeks, they saw land, although it wasn't much different from the ice because it was also covered with snow. The vice admiral announced that she had some business to do with a smuggler in Barsh-yin-Binder. She also planned a hunting trip. Once this business was done, she would return to Fort Krasnik.

"If yer back from yer wanderin' by then, yer welcome to come with me," said the vice admiral. "Otherwise, I'm afraid yer on your own. I can't imagine ya'll want to stay around here any longer than a few weeks."

Alfonso shot his uncle a worried look. The date wheel on Hill's watch was down to 19. They had less than three weeks to find Somnos.

"Trust me," said Hill. "We are going to be as quick as we can."

When the
Success Story
finally pulled into harbor just outside Barsh-yin-Binder, a dark mood hung over the ship. Everyone gathered on deck. Hill was wearing the top hat that contained the Dormian bloom. The vice admiral eyed the hat suspiciously but said nothing. Hellen nodded curtly and left to help Bilblox prepare the lifeboat that they would row to shore. A few minutes later, all was ready. Everybody shook hands and tried to smile, but it wasn't an easy goodbye. The vice admiral gave them a sack of gold coins for Barsh-yin-Binder. "Take it," she said gruffly but with emotion. "It should more than cover yer expenses."

As the three adventurers clambered into the lifeboat, the vice admiral reminded them to hurry back. The
Success Story
wouldn't stay near Barsh-yin-Binder any longer than was absolutely necessary.

They nodded, reluctantly waved goodbye, and pushed away from the ship. Under Bilblox's steady pulling, the lifeboat made good progress and soon the
Success Story
was no longer visible. Evening fell quickly, as it always does in the northern regions in the winter. The moon began its slow ascent across the sky, lighting up the gray hairs in Hill's mustache and illuminating Bilblox's ghostly white eyes.

A
LFONSO
strained to see through the inky darkness of Barsh-yin-Binder's harbor. He soon noticed a few docks, but they looked abandoned. The only ship visible in the entire harbor was a barely floating steamship that looked about as old and torn apart as the
Nyetbezkov
in Fort Krasnik. On its deck a battle was taking place—a gang of at least twenty sailors was fighting with fists and daggers. At one point, a man fell overboard and hit the water only a few feet away from their row-boat. The man was laughing violently. In one of his clenched fists he held a razor-sharp dagger. He continued to cackle and snort until the water lapped above his head and he sank beneath. No one aboard the ship even seemed to notice the man's
drowning and the small rowboat carrying Alfonso, Hill, and Bilblox slipped past undetected.

Bilblox rowed them toward a remote corner of the harbor, where several rundown docks jutted out into the water. Alfonso surveyed the view in all directions. The city's only visible landmark was a darkened castle that loomed in the distance.

"Bilblox, pull us into that dock at the very end!" commanded Hill in a hard whisper.

Bilblox turned around to get a better look. He blinked furiously into the darkness. It was obvious that he could see nothing at all.

"Don't worry about it, my friend," said Hill apologetically. "I'll row us in the rest of the way." The two men switched places and within minutes they bumped lightly against a dilapidated dock. It was nothing more than a few pieces of rotten wood sticking up from the water.

They secured the rowboat to the sturdiest piece of wood they could find and entered the knee-high water just a foot or two from the shore. It felt like liquid ice. All three hurried to get out of the water and stumbled onto solid land for the first time since leaving Fort Krasnik.