The Wind Through the Keyhole

5

Bix bristled when they offered to help him with his preparations. It was his job, he said, and he could still do it-just not as quickly as once upon a time, when there had been farms and a few little trading posts on both sides of the river.

In any case, there wasn’t much to do. He fetched a stool and a large ironwood ringbolt from the boathouse, mounted the stool to attach the ringbolt to the top of the post, then hooked the ringbolt to the cable. He took the stool back inside and returned with a large metal crank shaped like a block Z. This he laid with some ceremony by a wooden housing on the far end of the raft.

“Don’t none of you kick that overboard, or I’ll never get home,” he said.

Roland squatted on his hunkers to study it. He beckoned to Eddie and Jake, who joined him. He pointed to the words embossed on the long stroke of the Z. “Does it say what I think it does?”

“Yep,” Eddie said. “North Central Positronics. Our old pals.”

“When did you get that, Bix?” Susannah asked.

“Ninety year ago, or more, if I were to guess. There’s an underground place over there.” He pointed vaguely in the direction of the Green Palace. “It goes for miles, and it’s full of things that belonged to the old people, perfectly preserved. Strange music still plays from overhead, music such as you’ve never heard. It scrambles your thinking, like. And you don’t dare stay there long, or you break out in sores and puke and start to lose your teeth. I went once. Never again. I thought for a while I was going to die.”

“Did you lose your hair as well as your chompers?” Eddie asked.

Bix looked surprised, then nodded. “Yar, some, but it grew back. That crank, it’s still, you know.”

Eddie pondered this a moment. Of course it was still, it was an inanimate object. Then he realized the old man was saying steel.

“Are’ee ready?” Bix asked them. His eyes were nearly as bright as Oy’s. “Shall I cast off?”

Eddie snapped off a crisp salute. “Aye-aye, cap’n. We’re away to the Treasure Isles, arr, so we be.”

“Come and help me with these ropes, Roland of Gilead, will ya do.”

Roland did, and gladly.