The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

the memory like nothing else in life, and as he pulled himself, hand over agonizing hand, toward the metal gondola, the dark countryside spinning dizzily below him, the freezing winds numbing his face and fingers, the Doctor’s grasp on his own sanity was tenuous at best. He tried to think of anything but the sickening drop below his kicking boots, but he could not. The effort denied him the breath to scream or even cry out, but with each wrenching movement he whimpered with open terror. All his life he had shrunk away from heights of any kind—even climbing ladders aboard ship he willed his eyes to look straight ahead and his limbs to move, lest his mind or stomach give way to even that meager height. Despite himself he scoffed—a staccato bark of saliva—at the very notion of
ladders
. His only consolation, feeble in the extreme, was that the noise of the wind and the darkness of the sky had so far hidden him from anyone looking out of a window. Not that he knew for certain he had not been seen. The Doctor’s own eyes were tightly shut.
    He had climbed perhaps half-way up the rope and his arms felt like burning lead. Already it seemed all he could do to hold on. He opened his eyes for the briefest glimpse, shutting them at once with a yelp at the vertigo caused by the swinging gondola. Where before he’d seen a face at the circular window there was only black glass. Had it truly been Elöise? He had been sure on the ground, but now—now he barely knew his own name. He forced himself upwards—each moment of letting one hand go to stab above him for the rope was a spike of fear in his heart, and yet he made himself do it again and again, feeling his way, his face locked in a shocking rictus of effort.
    Another two feet. His mind assailed him—why not stop? Why not let go? Wasn’t this the underlying dread behind his fear of heights to begin with—the actual impulse to jump? Why else did he shrink away from balconies and windows, but for the sudden urge to hurl himself into the air? Now it would be so simple. The grassy pastures below would be as good a grave as any sea—and how many times had he contemplated that, since Corinna’s death? How many times had he grown cold looking over the iron rail of a Baltic ship, worrying—like a depressive terrier with a well-gnawed stick—the urge to throw himself over the side?
    Another two feet, gritting his teeth and kicking his legs, driving himself by pure will and anger. That was a reason to live—his hatred for these people, their condescension, their assumption of privilege, their unconscionable
appetite.
He thought of them in the gondola, away from the freezing cold, no doubt wrapped in furs, soothed by the whispering wind and the whistling buzz of the rotors. Another foot, his arms slack as rope. He opened his hand and snatched for a new grip…kicked his boots…again…again. He forced his mind to think of anything but the drop—the dirigible—he’d never seen anything like it! Obviously full of some gas—hydrogen, he assumed—but was that all? And how was it powered? He didn’t know how it could bear the weight of the gondola much less a steam engine…could there be some other source? Something with Lorenz and the indigo clay? In the abstract Svenson might have found these questions fascinating, but now he threw himself into them with the mindless fervor of a man reciting multiplication tables to stave off an impending
crise.

    He opened his eyes again and looked up. He was closer than he thought, hanging some ten yards below the long iron cabin. The upper end of the rope was secured to the steel frame of the gasbag itself, just behind the cabin. The rear of the cabin had no window that he could see…but did it have a door? He closed his eyes and climbed, three agonizing feet, and looked up again. Doctor Svenson was suddenly appalled…climbing with his eyes closed he hadn’t realized…and for a moment he simply clung where he was. Below and to each side of the cabin were the rear rotors—each perhaps eight feet across—and his path on the rope led right between them. Between the wind and his own exertions, the rope swung back and forth—the blades themselves were turning so fast he couldn’t tell how wide the gap really was. The higher he got, the more any exertion might send him too far in either direction—and straight into the blades.
    There was nothing he could do except drop, and the longer he delayed out of fear, the less strength