Dormia (34 page)

"No!" declared Alfonso. "That bloom is mine—I grew it and I'm taking it to Somnos. It's my call and I say that Bilblox stays with us."

"A true Great Sleeper wouldn't take that chance," sniped Spack. "His only goal would be to return the bloom. Don't be foolish! You'll bring ruin to all of us. You'll be responsible for the destruction of Somnos and its people! Don't make this mistake!"

The wind was beginning to pick up again. All of them felt miserably cold, on top of their hunger and general lack of sleep. Alfonso turned to Spack and looked at her steadily. "Spack, I
am
the Great Sleeper," said Alfonso. "And Bilblox stays."

Hill saw in Alfonso's eyes a determination he had never seen before. "All right," Hill concluded. "It's your decision to make. I hope you made the right one."

T
HE GROUP
quietly took stock of their situation. The avalanche had buried their gear under many feet of hard-packed snow. They had only what was in Hill's backpack: his map and compass, a little firewood, dried food enough for one more meal, and a heavy wool blanket. Everything else was gone. Worst of all, they had arrived at the coordinates of sixty-four degrees north latitude by sixty-two degrees east longitude and there was no sign of Somnos. None at all.

The group looked around at the remains of their camp dejectedly.

"I'm not sure what we should do," said Hill. "Let's investigate the area. Maybe we'll find something to help us find our
way. I wonder what time it is ... Where's my watch?" Hill reached into his pocket for his Dormian pocket watch, but came up empty-handed. "Hey," he said, with a slightly alarmed look on his face, "has anyone seen my watch?"

"No," said Spack.

"Me neither," said Alfonso. Soon after, though, he realized that there was something clunky and unfamiliar in his pants pocket. He fished it out and discovered, to his great surprise, that it was Hill's watch.

"What's my watch doing in your pocket?" asked Hill.

"I don't know," said Alfonso. "It wasn't there yesterday. I guess my sleeping-self grabbed it. Sorry."

Alfonso inspected the watch quickly before giving it back to Hill. His heart sank as he realized that the date wheel was at zero. Reluctantly, he gave it to Hill.

Hill stared at the watch but said nothing. While closing it, he noticed a jagged line and an arrow scratched onto the watch front's intricate filigree. The filigree was a series of squiggly lines that looked like magnified fingerprints.

"Who did this?" Hill asked.

Alfonso shrugged. "I don't know," he said.

"You must have done this in your sleep," said Hill.

"I don't think so," said Alfonso, though, truth be told, he wasn't quite sure what he had done while asleep.

Hill stared at the deep scratch.

"Why would your sleeping-self do this?" he muttered. Hill turned the watch over and over. His fingertip rubbed the scratch. "Your sleeping-self is usually more careful. It always does things for a reason."

"Let me see that," said Spack, who had just joined the conversation. She examined the watch closely. "Interesting—the front looks exactly like a contour map."

Hill looked at her in shock. "What? Let me see." He examined the watch front. Spack was right. The lines shifted and shimmied just like on a contour map. And Alfonso's sleeping-self had just scratched a line through it.

Spack took the watch back and asked Hill for the Estonian smuggler's map. Hill pulled it out and they all leaned over and stared at it in the bright morning light. Spack crinkled her brow, and muttered to herself as she glanced at the map, then at the watch front, and then back to the map.

"The Great Sleeper has done it," she announced matter-of-factly. "And now I understand why those Wanderers were so focused on teaching map skills. The front of Hill's watch isn't ornamental: it's a contour map of this area. Alfonso just traced a path through that map to another location less than a day's march away. And I'll bet a good night's sleep that this new location is
Somnos.
I'll lead us there—it should be easy enough to find."

"You're sure this is only a few hours away?" said Hill.

"Trust me," replied Spack. "I'm a Wanderer. It should be less than a day. In any case, it'll have to be, because all our supplies are buried under thirty feet of snow. We won't last much longer than a day." She touched Hill's hand and smiled. "Trust me, old boy—I want to get home as much as you do."

***

They headed uphill at a steady march with Spack in the lead. No one said anything. They heard only the wind and the squeak
of their snowshoes on the snow. Although it was nice not to be carrying anything, it also made them all too aware of their vulnerability. They were in the middle of the desolate High Peaks of the Urals without gear or food. Alfonso kept glancing at the sky, which had filled with heavy, low-lying clouds.
If we are caught in another blizzard...
He was reluctant to finish the thought.

It wasn't long before everyone was ravenously hungry and thinking of the meager handfuls of food in Hill's backpack. However, Spack refused to stop or even turn around. She shook her head no, and continued through the snow in her strange half-lurch, half-walk. She led them along a mountain ridge, down the other side and smack into a brief but intense snowstorm. Only during the storm did Spack grudgingly stop for a minute. They huddled in a circle, as snow dusted across their faces and covered every inch of their jackets and hoods. Alfonso stared blankly at the white ground. His mind shut down and refused to think.

He was brought back to his senses by an unexpected feeling of warmth. Alfonso looked up and noticed that Hill was building a small fire with a handful of sticks that he had apparently stowed away in his bag. Seconds later, Spack jumped to her feet and stomped out the flames with her boots.

"What on earth are you trying to do—give away our location?" demanded Spack. "What if someone is following us? You'd be helping them. There can be no fires. It's too risky at this point in the journey."

"I was just so cold..." muttered Hill.

"You know better than that," said Spack. "What were you thinking?"

Hill shrugged sheepishly. He didn't seem himself. He was tired, weary, and chattering with cold.

"Don't worry, my friend," said Spack with a bit of tenderness in her voice. "You remember Somnos, don't you? It's a tropical paradise. Green plants, colorful songbirds, ripe mangoes, humid air, soil so ripe you could practically eat it—we're almost there."

By midafternoon, they reached a snowy plateau roughly the size of a soccer field. It was hemmed in on three sides by walls of sheer rock and the only way in was the route they had just taken. The wind began to howl. There were no signs of life—anywhere.

Spack looked concerned. She looked at the Estonian smuggler's map and then at Hill's watch. "Something's wrong," she said. "This is nothing like Somnos. Everything is covered in snow and the only sign of life are those vultures circling above us, just waiting for us to drop dead so they can eat our flesh and crack open our bones. Disgusting."

They looked up and saw at least three, maybe four birds circling lazily above them.

"Strange that vultures would be in the high mountains like this," said Hill. "They must be well adapted to the altitude."

"Those aren't vultures," said Alfonso. "They're falcons. Eurasian gray falcons, I think. I read about them in my falconeering books. They're the biggest falcons alive: twelve-foot wingspan, beaks like steel razors, talons that will rip apart a mountain goat with one thrust, and gray feathers that turn a burnt orange in the summer. They'll eat anything, but I've never heard of them attacking humans."

"Well, they seem to be interested in us," said Spack.

They stared at the falcons for a while longer.

"Alfonso, was it your sleeping-self or your waking-self that was most interested in falcons?" Hill asked.

"Both, actually," replied Alfonso.

Frozen and tired to the bone, Alfonso stared up at the magnificent Eurasian falcons and sensed somehow that they were important. He glanced over at Hill and it was clear from the expression on Hill's face that his uncle was thinking the same thing.

The falcons abruptly lost interest in the group below them and flew off toward one of the sheer cliffs that surrounded the plateau. Hill took out a monoscope, which he kept tucked into his jacket at all times. "Looks like they've got a nest in that cliff," he said. "It's hard to see, but I think it's a cave. That would make sense. Any nest exposed to this weather would be blown off in a second."

Alfonso took the monoscope from Hill and looked at the small opening in the cliff. It looked empty but then he saw a slight movement from just inside. At least one of the falcons was there.

"Well, that's interesting and all," Spack said, "but this doesn't help us much, does it? I guess we'd better take a look around and hope we find something."

For the next two hours, until the sun dipped below the horizon, the group combed every inch of the plateau. They found nothing but snow and sharp rock. The temperature began plummeting and the situation was desperate. They had no equipment to survive in that environment. Alfonso looked at Bilblox, Spack, and Hill, and saw by their drawn faces and shaking hands that they were just as cold and concerned as him.

"We can't be wrong," muttered Spack. "Somnos must be nearby."

"If we're wrong, we die," said Hill. His voice quavered and his eyes were blood-shot. They could barely hear him above the ferocious, snow-filled wind. He looked at Alfonso, who was staring up at the cliffs.

"Alfonso?" he said.

Alfonso turned and looked at Hill. "I'll be back," he said. "I have to climb the cliff and see that falcons' nest." He nodded gravely and then, without another word, began walking toward the sheer rock face.

The others looked at one another, confused.

"Are you crazy?" Spack shouted after him. "Those cliffs are straight up! You'll kill yourself!"

Alfonso soon reached the cliff wall. He paused to look for a good route, which gave Hill time to catch up.

"Stop," gasped Hill, his whole body shaking from the effort of breathing. "Tell me exactly what you're thinking."

"It can't be a coincidence," explained Alfonso. "I've been taking care of falcons in my sleep ever since I was eight years old and here we are—just outside Somnos—and what do we find? Falcons! It all makes sense. Don't you see? My sleeping-self must have been preparing for this moment for years."

"But preparing for what exactly?" asked Hill.

"I'm not sure," said Alfonso. "But I know that I have to see what's in that nest."

Hill stared into Alfonso's serious eyes. "All right," Hill said. "We're desperate. Give it a go." He reached into his backpack, took out a coil of rope, and handed it to Alfonso. "Put this in your backpack," said Hill. "Just in case you need some help."

***

With night falling, Alfonso began to climb toward the falcons' cave. Despite the bitter winds that tore at his exposed hands and face, Alfonso climbed steadily. The wall rose almost straight up, but it had many holds and crags, like the bark of the Great Obitteroos back in Minnesota. Alfonso was thrilled at his success in climbing. It was something he knew how to do, although usually he was only comfortable doing it while asleep. This time, he wasn't asleep or even in hypnogogia. It was just him—normal, awake Alfonso doing the climbing.

Only toward the end of his climb did he begin to slow down. The ligaments in his fingers ached dully and his shoulders began to cramp. Shooting stars burst across his eyes and he wondered what was happening to him. He couldn't feel the tips of his fingers. Once, his hands slipped off the rock, but he had learned long ago that balance in the legs is the most important part of climbing. That lesson saved him, and he was able to teeter on the rock face without falling, and seconds later his fingers again gripped the rock. A cold sweat broke out and trickled down into his eyes. It was so cold that seconds later the sweat froze on his skin. Still, Alfonso kept climbing, because to stop would mean wasting the last dregs of his strength. He only looked up, and slowly, minute by minute, his destination drew nearer.

Alfonso's mind was in a complete fog when he dragged himself onto the wind-swept ledge in front of the cave. He lay there motionless for a full minute before his head began to clear and he started creeping toward the cave opening. At that moment,
an enraged mother falcon emerged from inside. He could tell it was a female by the marking on her enormous wings. She was, in fact, the largest bird that Alfonso had ever seen—standing at least five feet tall. Her beak alone was almost the size of Alfonso's head.

The mother falcon let out a piercing shriek and lunged at Alfonso. Instinctively, Alfonso rolled away, back toward the edge of the cliff. The falcon lunged again and, an instant later, Alfonso screamed. His right shoulder throbbed with pain. The falcon had slashed him with her razor-sharp beak. Alfonso touched his shoulder with the palm of his left hand, and it came away covered in glistening blood. He looked up and saw the falcon towering over him and eyeing him angrily. She snapped her beak and screeched. It was obvious that she was getting ready to strike again.

"
Kee-aw, Kee-aw, Sqrook!
" Alfonso yelled.

The falcon paused and cocked her head.

"
Kee-aw, Kee-aw, Sqrook!
" Alfonso yelled again.

The mother falcon seemed confused.

"
Kee-aw, Kee-aw, Sqrook!
" Alfonso yelled yet again.

This time, the mother falcon took several steps backwards, retreating into the darkened recesses of the cave. For the moment, at least, Alfonso appeared to be safe. He promptly curled in a tight ball, the way he had seen the baby falcons do, and tried to resist touching his right shoulder. He stayed this way for several minutes. The mother falcon did not return. Alfonso rose gingerly to his knees, again repeated the baby falcon call, and crept deeper into the cave.