The Kingdom

“Let’s get cooking,” Remi said.

They used wads of paper and lichen as tinder, on top of which they placed a tripod of wicker chunks. Once they had a solid bed of coals, they continued to feed wicker into the brazier, and slowly flames began licking upward.

Remi placed her hand over the brazier’s flue. She jerked it back. “Hot!”

“Perfect. Now we wait. This is going to take a while.”

One hour turned into two. The balloon filled slowly, expanding around them like a miniature circus tent, as their fuel supply dwindled. Beneath the canopy the sunlight seemed ethereal, hazy. Sam realized they were fighting time and thermal physics, as the air cooled and seeped through the balloon’s skin.

Just before the third hour, the balloon, though still lying perpendicular to the ground, lifted and floated free. Whether reality or perception, they weren’t sure, but this seemed to be a watershed moment. Within forty minutes the balloon was standing upright, its exterior growing more taut by the minute.

“It’s working,” Remi murmured. “It’s really working.”

Sam nodded, said nothing, his eyes fixed on the craft.

Finally he said, “All aboard.”

Remi trotted to their supply pile, snatched up the engraved length of bamboo, slid it down the back of her jacket, then jogged back. She removed rocks one by one until she had room to kneel, then sit. The opposite side of the platform was now hovering a few inches off the ground.

Having already stuffed the emergency parachute pack with some essentials, and the duffel bag with their bricks and the last armload of wicker, Sam grabbed both, then knelt beside the platform.

“You ready?” he asked.

Remi didn’t blink an eye. “Let’s fly.”

36

NORTHERN NEPAL

The flames leapt up in the brazier’s interior, disappearing through the balloon’s mouth, until Sam and Remi were floating at knee height above the plateau.

“When I say so, push with everything you’ve got,” Sam said.

He stuffed the last two pieces of wicker into the brazier and watched, waited, eyes darting from the brazier to the balloon to the ground.

“Now!”

In unison, they coiled their legs and shoved hard.

They surged upward ten feet. Then descended just as rapidly.

“Get ready to push again!” Sam called.

Their feet struck the ice.

“Push!”

Again they shot upward and again they returned to earth, albeit more slowly.

“We’re getting there,” Sam said.

“We need a rhythm,” Remi replied. “Think, bouncing ball.”

So they began bouncing over the plateau, each time gaining a bit more altitude. To their left, the edge of the cliff loomed.

“Sam . . .” Remi warned.

“I know. Don’t look, just keep bouncing. Fly or swim!”

“Lovely!”

They shoved off once more. A gust of wind caught the balloon and shoved them down the plateau, their feet skipping over the ice. Remi’s leg slipped off the edge of the cliff, but she kept her cool, giving one last united shove with the other leg.

And then, abruptly, everything went silent save the wind whistling through the guylines.

They were airborne and climbing.

And heading southeast toward the slope.

Sam reached into the duffel and withdrew a pair of bricks. He fed them into the brazier. They heard a soft whoosh as the brick ignited. Flames shot from the flue. They began rising.

“Another,” Remi said.

Sam dropped a third brick into the brazier.

Whoosh! The balloon climbed.

The pine trees were a few hundred yards away and closing fast. A gust of wind caught the balloon and spun it. Sam and Remi clutched at the guylines and tightened their legs around the platform. After three rotations, the platform steadied and went still again.

Looking over Remi’s shoulder, Sam gauged the distance to the slope.

“How close?” Remi asked.

“About two hundred yards. Ninety seconds, give or take.” He looked her in the eye. “It’s going to be razor thin. Go for broke?”

“Absolutely.”

Sam stuffed a fourth brick into the brazier. Whoosh!

They both looked over the side of the platform. The tops of the pine trees seemed impossibly close. Remi felt something snag at her foot, and she tipped sideways. Sam leaned forward, grabbed her arm.

He added another brick. Whoosh!

Another. Whoosh!

“A hundred yards!” Sam called.

Another brick. Whoosh!

“Fifty yards!” He grabbed a brick from the duffel, shook it in his cupped hands like dice, and extended it toward Remi. “For luck.”

She blew on it.

He dropped the brick into the brazier.

Whoosh!

“Raise your feet!” Sam shouted.

They felt and heard the tip of a pine tree clawing the underside of the platform. They were jerked sideways.

“We’re snagged!” Sam called. “Lean!”

In unison, they tipped their torsos in the opposite direction, hanging over the edge while clutching a guyline. Sam kicked his leg, trying to free them from whatever lay below.

With a sharp crack the offending branch snapped. The platform righted itself. Sam and Remi sat up, looking down and around and up.

“We’re clear!” Remi shouted. “We made it!”

Sam let out the breath he’d been holding. “Never doubted it for a second.”

Remi gave him the look.

“Okay,” he said. “Maybe for a second or two.”

Now clear of the ridge, the wind slackening slightly, they found themselves heading south at what Sam estimated was ten miles per hour. They had traveled less than a few hundred yards before their altitude began bleeding off.

Sam dug another brick out of the duffel. He dropped it through the feed hole and it ignited. They began rising.

Remi asked, “How many do we have left?”

Sam checked. “Ten.”

“Now might be a good time to tell me your landing Plan B.”

“On the off chance we don’t manage a perfect, feather-soft touchdown, our next best chance is pine trees-find a tight cluster and try to fly straight in.”

“What you’ve just described is a crash landing without the land.”

“Essentially.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, exactly. We hold on tight and hope the boughs act as an arresting net.”

“Like on aircraft carriers.”

“Yes.”

Remi considered this. She pursed her lips and puffed a strand of auburn hair from her forehead. “I like it.”

“I thought you would.”

Sam dropped another brick into the brazier. Whoosh!

With the late afternoon sun at their backs, they glided ever southward, occasionally feeding bricks into the brazier while keeping a sharp eye out for a landing spot. They’d traveled approximately four miles and had so far seen only scree valleys, glaciers, and copses of pine trees.

“We’re losing altitude,” Remi said.

Sam fed the brazier. They continued to descend.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“Dissipation, I think. We’re losing the sun, along with the temperature. The balloon’s bleeding heat faster than we can put it in.”

Sam dropped another brick through the hole. Their descent slowed slightly, but there was no denying it: they were on an irreversible downward glide path. They began gaining speed.

“Time to make a choice,” Sam said. “We’re not going to make a meadow, but we’ve got a Plan B coming up.”

He pointed over Remi’s shoulder. Ahead and below was a stand of pine trees. Past that lay another boulder-strewn valley.

Sam said, “Or we can stuff the rest of the bricks into the brazier and hope we find a better spot.”

“We’ve pushed our luck too far. I’m ready for terra firma. How do you want to do this?”

Sam checked the approaching tree line, trying to gauge speed, distance, and their angle of approach. They had three minutes, he guessed. They were traveling at perhaps fifteen miles per hour, and that would likely double by the time they reached the trees. While a survivable crash inside a car, on this platform their chances were fifty-fifty.