Dormia (24 page)

Alfonso's skin crawled as he realized that for the first time, he was scared of Bilblox. "Let's go," he said in what he hoped sounded like a determined voice. "Just a couple more minutes and then I'm sure everything will be just fine." He started walking, his feet loudly smacking against the water.

"All right," came the voice of a defeated-sounding Bilblox. "Let's keep goin'."

Water flowed into rivulets and soon formed a small stream that lapped over their shoes. They splashed forward. The water started to rise, first to their ankles, followed by their legs, knees, and finally, to the waist. The water was quite warm. It had to be the same water that flowed into the Trawpoy's hot springs.

"What do we do?" Bilblox asked.

"I'm not sure," said Alfonso.

"How's the backpack? We can't get it wet," said Bilblox.

"It's fine," replied Alfonso. "The sealskin wraps seem to be working."

They continued on but soon stopped again because the tunnel appeared to end directly in front of them. Yet, as they drew closer, they saw that it wasn't really a dead-end. The tunnel continued, but the ceiling slanted steeply down, so that it hung only a foot or so over the surface of the water. Something else caught their attention as well—the water was moving forward in a strong current, as if something was pulling it forward.

"That underground river has to be just beyond this tunnel," said Alfonso. "We'll have to crawl through."

Bilblox groped his way forward and felt the dimensions of
the space with his free hand. "No way," he said. "There's no way we can get through. It's too tight."

"There's a little space to breathe—in between the water and the ceiling," Alfonso said. "As long as it doesn't narrow any further, we'll make it."

"And what if it narrows?"

Alfonso said nothing.

"I don't like it," said Bilblox.

"Neither do I," said Alfonso. "But we don't have any other options."

Alfonso shoved the flashlight deep into his pocket. "I sure hope this flashlight is waterproof," mumbled Alfonso as he crept deeper into the cave. Water rocked and splashed all around him, but there was just enough space for him to keep his head above the water. Still, it felt awful being in that tiny space, almost completely covered in water, knees and elbows scraping against the sharp rock. Alfonso began to take shallow breaths that left him lightheaded. Behind him, he heard Bilblox struggle to shove the coffin into the tunnel. Rather suddenly, Alfonso was gripped with an overwhelming urge to go back. He tried to turn around but the space was too tight. In any case, the coffin pushed against his back. Alfonso tried to relax, and continued crawling forward.

After about ten feet, the tunnel shrank even more and the water rose above Alfonso's mouth, to just below his nose. His sealskin-covered backpack was now totally submerged. He prayed that the bloom was dry and safe.

"What's goin' on?" Bilblox yelled, his voice muffled by the water. "We're gonna drown!"

"Come on!" sputtered Alfonso. "I can hear the river."

The force of the current around them grew stronger. Alfonso struggled to keep his footing, but it was impossible. His feet were being pulled out from under him as if he were being sucked down a giant drain; and then, quite suddenly, he slipped and was yanked down through the water-filled tunnel. He panicked. Alfonso had always been good at holding his breath, but this was radically different than playing around in a pool. He was trapped underwater and being pulled even deeper! Alfonso thought of his mom, of World's End, Minnesota, and of the bloom that was inside his backpack.

Alfonso's head pounded. His skin crawled. He lost all sense of direction. Then the pressure eased from his ears. His head broke the surface of the water. He had survived!

For a few seconds, Alfonso did nothing but float on the surface of the water and gasp for air. He could see nothing through the darkness. Suddenly, something splashed next to him. Alfonso remembered the flashlight in his pocket. He fished it out and pointed it in the direction of the splash. He flicked on the flashlight and was delighted to find that it worked. He panned it around and saw Bilblox several feet away, floating face-down next to the coffin.

"BILBLOX!" Alfonso yelled. He swam over, grabbed the coffin, and lifted up Bilblox's head. Bilblox coughed and spit up water. He moaned in pain.

"You're alive!" said Alfonso. "I thought we were goners."

"Wh-wh-where are we?" Bilblox weakly sputtered.

"We're still underground," said Alfonso. "We're on a river. I think this is the one Van Bambleweep told us about."

"Yeah," replied Bilblox. "Let's get onto the coffin—it oughta make a good boat."

"What if it sinks?" asked Alfonso. "I don't want Spack to drown."

"This coffin ain't sinkin'," said Bilblox. "Trust me. I was underwater with this thing for a solid minute. It popped right back to the surface like a cork."

After a few minutes of anxious maneuvering, both managed to board the floating coffin. They sat upon it as if it were a big, clunky, wooden surfboard. Alfonso untied the paddles from the side of the coffin and gave one to Bilblox, keeping the other for himself. Then he carefully took off his backpack and tied it to the coffin using the ropes that had tied the paddles together. Alfonso wanted to see if the bloom was okay, but knew that he would have to wait until they reached a safer place.

Bilblox, who was sitting at the front of the coffin, began to paddle with long, powerful strokes. Alfonso, who sat in back, used his paddle as a rudder and navigated them down the river.

The river was moving very swiftly and the roar of the current echoed off the walls and ceiling. Overhead, thousands of stalactites hung like massive stone arrows just waiting to drop. Alfonso's skin itched and he wondered what types of strange minerals were in the water. It seemed like vapors were rising out of the water, but he couldn't be sure. The water itself was quite hot. All in all, the river seemed like it was from another planet.

They gradually noticed that the current of the river was building speed. Bilblox looked concerned. "Did the doctor say anythin' about rapids?" he yelled.

"No," Alfonso yelled back. He was pointing the flashlight down the river. "But I hear something up ahead. Sounds like rapids!"

"Oh brother," muttered Bilblox. "Could it get any worse?"

Just then, the coffin started to rock, and a great pounding sound echoed from within the cavity of the wooden chest:
Bang! Bang! Bang!

"What's going on?" exclaimed Alfonso.

"By the demons of the
Nyetbezkov!
" yelled Bilblox. "It's that sleepin' fool—Spack. She's finally woken up!"

T
HE WOODEN
lid to the coffin rattled wildly. It appeared to have three panels—one above the occupant's feet, one above her midsection, and one above her head—each of which could be opened separately. All three of them shook. Eventually, the rattling stopped and Alfonso heard the sound of a sliding bolt, as if someone were unlocking the coffin from the inside. A moment later, the middle panel—in between where Alfonso and Bilblox were sitting—swung open. After a great deal of squirming and contorting, a head poked out. The head belonged to a terrified-looking woman with a narrow face, pale skin, and an overwhelming amount of uncombed frizzy hair. It was Spack the loafer and she was dripping wet.

"Got any food?" asked Spack. "I'm starving! Haven't eaten
in days. A bit of pork sausage with some farmer's cheese would be nice. Perhaps a dry red wine as well? But I'll settle for bread crumbs if you have any."

"Now's not the time," yelled Alfonso. "We're in serious trouble!"

"Where are we, anyway?" asked Spack with a yawn.

"There's really no time to explain," replied Alfonso with a nervous smile. "We're in the catacombs beneath Barsh-yin-Binder and I think there are some rapids ahead."

"Only a fool would go into the catacombs!" said Spack. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Alfonso!"

"Never heard of you," said Spack. "And if you haven't got any food, then kindly get off my coffin." With that, Spack extended a wiry arm outside the coffin, and pushed Alfonso into the swirling water. Unprepared for this, Alfonso sank quickly before righting himself and grabbing hold of the coffin with one of his hands. He coughed and spat out water. Spack thought she had taken care of whoever that was, and decided to go back to sleep. She squirmed back into her coffin. This gave Bilblox the chance to crawl up the coffin and slam the middle panel closed. Bilblox then slowed the coffin down with his paddle and helped Alfonso, who was struggling to get back on. Spack started rocking back and forth inside the coffin and pounding against the walls.

"Just ignore her," yelled Bilblox. "There's no time for explanations. We got rapids ahead!"

"Where's the flashlight?" yelled Alfonso. "I can't see a thing."

"I don't know!" yelled Bilblox. "I thought ya had it!"

"Oh no!" said Alfonso. "It must have gone overboard—"

"Heads up!" yelled Bilblox. "Here come the rapids!"

Alfonso knew there was only one option: he had to enter hypnogogia. He closed his eyes halfway, took a deep breath, and pictured sand falling through an hourglass. He envisioned the individual grains falling, one at a time. He controlled his breathing so that with each exhale another grain of sand fell in his mind's eye. Pressure began to build in his ears—everything went silent for a moment—and then his hearing came to life with an incredible sensitivity.

The key was to use the sound and turn it into a visual picture, just like a bat. He listened carefully. Each miniscule bit of sound became a dot in his mind's eye. The countless water drops that made up the river fell into obedient patterns, and in brief flashes he could see what lay ahead. The scene resembled one of those paintings comprised only of tiny dots. He had seen a painting like this once when he had visited the Art Institute of Chicago. The technique was called pointillism, or something like that. When you looked closely at the points you couldn't make sense of them, but when you took a step backwards and took in the wider view, the points formed an incredibly detailed scene. In this case, there were actually millions of dots because the picture in his mind's eye was three-dimensional. The key was not to get overwhelmed. He started by focusing on a single dot and then allowed himself to expand his realm of concentration as if he were zooming out with a camera. Gradually, the entire scene revealed itself to him. He saw a series of twelve massive boulders less than a hundred feet away. Four of them were hidden just beneath the surface of the water, but he could still see them.

"Let's go!" yelled Alfonso. "How do you feel? Can you steer the coffin?"

"I'll do the best I can," said the injured Bilblox.

"I'll tell you which way to go," Alfonso shouted.

"Got it!" yelled Bilblox as the coffin dropped three feet into a pool of foamy water.

"Left!" yelled Alfonso.

Bilblox plunged his oar deep into the water and the coffin jerked to the left. A rock scraped thickly along the bottom and they both heard a muffled yell from within the coffin.

"Right!"

Again Bilblox dug the paddle into the water and the coffin shifted to the right, just missing a jagged, moss-covered rock.

"Right!"

"Left!"

"Left!"

"Left!"

"Right!"

The directions came at a furious pace. Bilblox responded as fast as he could, but still there were moments when they nearly capsized and razor-sharp rocks scraped deep grooves into the coffin.

They dropped headlong into a narrow chute of water surrounded by rock. Ahead was an enormous, spearlike boulder. Alfonso yelled at Bilblox to turn, but it came too late. The coffin hit the boulder head-on, and everyone tumbled forward. Fortunately, however, Alfonso was still in hypnogogia and—without the slightest hesitation—he jumped lightly onto the boulder, pushed the coffin away with a flick of his foot, and jumped back on. The coffin sprang free and shot down a final
chute of warm whitewater. Then, as suddenly as it all began, the rapids ended and the roiling whitecaps dissipated into swirls and eddies.

They were through.

Bilblox grinned broadly. "Good job, buddy," he shouted, his voice echoing from wall to wall. "We did it!"

Alfonso nodded wearily. He had managed to stay in the hypnogogic state for five minutes straight, which was a record for him. Now he was utterly exhausted.

"Well I think that Spack has gone back to sleepin'," remarked Bilblox. "And ya know what? Those rapids must-a cleared out some cobwebs in my eyes. I can actually see a little bit now!"

"That's great," Alfonso weakly replied. "Get ready to pull the coffin over in a little bit. I think we're nearing the Great Cavern..." Alfonso knew that this would be the trickiest part of their ordeal. He recalled the doctor's words:

 

Take the river as far as the Great Cavern. You will know that you've entered the Great Cavern when you hear bats chirping and you see a strange glowing blue light. Make sure to get off the river here! Beyond the Great Cavern is a massive two-thousand-foot-high waterfall. You will certainly die if you go over it. Once you enter the cavern, paddle immediately to your right until you reach a pebble beach. Here you will find a giant painting of Prince Binder surrounded by many stone doorways. You should see a stone tablet with writing on it that tells you which doorway to take. The correct doorway should lead you around the falls—at least that's what my grandfather told me. I've never actually been that far, and can only advise
you to choose wisely. The wrong doorway will lead back into the maze of the catacombs.

 

For a while, they floated along in relative silence until they entered an enormous cavern that looked big enough to hold an entire city. A strange, unearthly light with no obvious source caused the water to glow a light blue, as if the sky were below the water. Thousands of bats fluttered and squawked in the murky light. Alfonso looked to his right. Just as the doctor had described, there was a pebble beach; beyond this stood a wall that contained an entire grid of stone doorways. The doorways were stacked vertically and horizontally like a giant tic-tac-toe board. In the center of the grid was a large blank space that contained the remains of a gigantic drawing of a man in an elegant robe. This, presumably, was Prince Binder.