Captain Nemo_ The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius - Kevin J Anderson [69]
Mulling over these thoughts as he left the National Assembly, Verne found a few sous in his pocket, enough for one day’s food. But he walked past the fruit carts and bakery baskets and stopped instead at a book shop. There, he found the romances of Sir Walter Scott in thirteen volumes, a collection of the poetry of Racine -- and, in a single magnificent tome, the Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
Verne counted the coins in the palm of his hand, studying the prices of the books. A person had to have priorities, after all. After dickering with the vendor, he settled on an amount. Verne walked home, penniless and still hungry . . . but carrying the book of Shakespeare.
He considered it a better investment of his money than mere food.
iv
Nemo was a stranger in a world where no human being had ever set foot.
Misty swamps spread out in the lost landscape, inhabited by strange and forgotten creatures. The ceiling of the incredible grotto became a sky of stone high above. Stalactites blurred in the distance, as far away as clouds, lit by a strange bright smear like a surrogate sun.
Nemo forged a path through the virgin wilderness. The primeval paradise simmered with subdued noises, shattered by occasional roars like the carnivorous dinosaur that had attacked his island. He pushed aside curled ferns similar to the tails of caged monkeys he had seen on the docks in Nantes.
In addition to his mushroom feast, he found brightly colored fruits and edible leaves in this uncharted Eden. Now that he was traveling again after so many years, Nemo felt even more restless. He moved one step at a time, pushing onward in hopes of discovering a passage that led upward. Home.
He trudged through swamps, sloshing in ankle-deep, peaty water. Huge flowers like sunbursts brightened the humid green-brown world. A dragonfly the size of a vulture ratcheted by with wings like the glider he had built. Nemo ducked to one side as the mammoth insect swooped down to the sluggish water, scooped up a thrashing fish, and made off with its meal.
Nemo parted moss-covered branches to look out upon a dozen wading dinosaurs, immense beasts larger than any whale. Their long necks curled like a giraffe’s. One plump creature gazed at him with placid eyes, its mouth full of uprooted swamp weeds. It showed no intelligence, only a dull interest. The plant-eating dinosaurs dismissed him and went back to their tireless eating.
Keeping track of time and direction as best he could, Nemo slept when he was tired, ate when he was hungry. In the smoky twilight, he used his best guess to keep a regular cycle of day and night. He fashioned a makeshift compass in a small pool of water, but could not verify its accuracy. He did not know his direction . . . only onward.
For weeks he continued through the deeper swamp into a cluster of conifers that sheltered a hoard of large, scaly bats. The startled bats took off with a thunderous flapping of wings toward the grotto ceiling, much as a flock of sparrows might have flown from a shooting party back in France.
At one point it rained for days on end. Salty-tasting water streamed from high above. Uneasy, Nemo wondered if he’d passed beneath a porous section of the ocean floor that allowed water to trickle through. According to his best estimates, Nemo had long since passed beyond the confines of the island.
The grotto seemed to go on forever, as if the Earth had swallowed a bubble of the past and preserved it far from the surface. Nemo proceeded for what might have been months, clinging to a thin twine of hope that if he walked far enough, searched diligently enough, he would emerge again to civilization.
In the remaining, waterstained pages in his bound journal, he continued to document his travels, pressing a few strange leaves and flowers between sheets of dense description. Even with the daily entries and the specimens, though, he doubted anyone would