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Dumas took him in a small boat out to an isolated island in the center of the estate’s largest artificial pond. “Here, my friend, is where I do my writing, where no one can disturb me. I require complete silence to do my work.”

Verne could see at a glance that the large gazebo was designed for creating literary masterpieces. Dumas stood at the doorway to his writing abode. “I must have concentration, you see. I’ve produced over four hundred short stories, plays, and novels in the last twenty years. I have a reputation to maintain -- as well as my momentum!”

Dumas had been called a “fiction factory,” and in order to maintain his prodigious output, he hired other writers to complete many scenes in his books. He concocted the stories and the characters himself, but sometimes, he needed others to bother with the details.

“I admire you, Monsieur Dumas.” Verne raised his chin. “I study law at my father’s insistence, but I have literary ambitions of my own. Someday, I hope to be as successful as you are. I will work very hard at it.”

Dumas laughed, dark chins jiggling. His chuckles echoed across the placid water. One of the swans stirred, then settled down as if it had heard the booming laughter many times before. “Oh, ho! I respect a young man with ambition and drive.” Dumas raised eyebrows on a dusky forehead. “But do you have the necessary discipline and persistence, mmm?”

“I do,” Verne said, then surprised himself with his own brazenness. “Would you help me, Monsieur? Would you show me how to become a great writer like yourself?”

Dumas laughed again, but looked more seriously at his guest. “That remains to be seen, my friend. Many novices make the same request, but few are willing to do the necessary hard work.”

“Oh, I will work. I’ve already completed two major historical plays and one comedy.” He chastised himself for not having brought them along, for just such an opportunity.

“Oh, ho! Then I should like to read them.”

Verne couldn’t tell if the huge author truly meant it, or if he had simply expressed the sentiment out of a perceived obligation to his guest. He hoped for some advice -- or better yet, connections. Dumas had it in his power to introduce him to the important publishers in Paris. Verne prayed the famous man might even hire him to help draft some of his scenes.

Verne looked around the isolated island study surrounded by beautiful trees, well-maintained gardens, and the fancifully decorated buildings of Monte Cristo. He longed for such fame and fortune. How could he ever hope for such luxury as a . . . as a country lawyer?

Many had aspired to similar success, but as he looked into the sepia eyes of the “fiction factory” himself, Verne also knew that he was different from all those others. He would work hard enough. He would be disciplined so that one day he could make a living by writing stories and plays.

The thought excited him vastly more than the prospect of an unending future as a small-town attorney, no matter what his father said. Verne vowed to stay close to Alexandre Dumas and learn everything he could from the master.

x

With the force of trapped pressure from below, the steam vent blasted Nemo into open air like a geyser. Stunned but protected inside the tough mushroom cap, Nemo was hurled high into the sky -- a blue sky studded with real clouds -- only to tumble down in a shower of sulfurous-smelling rain.

Around him, like a stark dream, he saw rough lava rocks and the curved wall of a volcanic crater. And snow . . . snow everywhere.

Then he slammed into the ground with an impact that knocked the wind out of him and drove all the senses from his brain.

#

Nemo awoke to find himself sprawled in a desolate caldera among the chunks of his shattered fungus lifeboat. At least the spongy mushroom flesh had cushioned his fall.

Groggy, he raised his head and looked at his surroundings, a rocky wasteland frosted with ice and snow. Brimstone-smelling fumaroles hissed from the inner walls of the volcanic crater.

When he sat up, shaking his