Potlendh

by David J. Wallis

  “Storm warning!” a crewman cried out, and Lump looked to port, which is on the ship’s left. Immediately, he was all action. He began issuing orders to ride out the storm, but a strong wind suddenly caught the craft and began pushing it north. So strong was the gust that it dangerously tipped the boat onto its starboard, or right, side. There was nothing anyone could do but hold on tight to something solid. It was a long way down to the earth below.

  When the worst of the wind had subsided, the boat righted itself, but the crew now found that they had no steering control. Something below had not been tied down and slammed into the steering box, damaging it. Worse, the dark clouds had caught up with them and completely surrounded the craft. The crew were now also blind, at mercy to the winds that drove the clouds.

  “Steering is damaged,” another crewman told Lump. “Navigation is out as well. We had better try to land as soon as possible.”

  “If we can,” Lump said through gritted teeth. “Bring Carl to me.”

  Several minutes later, Carl was talking with Lump in the Captain’s cabin.

  “If you are goin’ to tell me that I should-a listened to you earlier, forget it,” Lump began. “We have more pressin’ problems. We have to land this boat before we are taken out to sea and are lost forever. Any ideas?”

  “If we try and land now, we might hit the mountains,” Carl told him. “But then, if we wait too long, we’ll either miss the forests of the Land of the Missing Dinosaurs or land right in the middle of Lava World.”

  “So, what are you suggestin’?” Lump demanded curtly.

  Carl took out his crude map from inside his pocket and made some quick calculations. “I’m guessing a lot here. If the initial gust of wind pushed us both north and east, we might be clear of the mountain range in about ten minutes. These clouds prevent us from being able to see the ground, and that means we can’t see the tops of the mountains either. We should begin a slow descent in a few minutes. Can we do that?”

  “At the moment, we can either go straight out to sea or descend into the mountains,” the Captain told him. “If we make a mistake, there is no way that we can ascend again.” Lump paused to look Carl over very critically. “Somethin’ about you makes me believe you have a lot of luck on your side. I’m gonna trust you, even though my gut tells me not to. We’ll begin our descent shortly. You’d better be right, because I won’t be able to yell at you for being wrong if we’re all dead!”

  Carl left the Captain’s cabin feeling rather ill. He had admitted that his thoughts were all guesswork, yet the Captain was trusting him. What if he were wrong? He walked towards the bow and peered through the impenetrable fog, hoping to spot danger in time to prevent the kind of disaster the Captain feared.

  “Do you have x-ray vision?” a familiar voice behind him asked. Carl turned to see Uniqua standing behind him. “The problem with this boat is that the walls are very thin. I heard everything.”

  “What if I’m wrong, Uniqua?” Carl expressed his worries.

  The Unicorn gave the best impression of a shrug her body would allow. “Then you were wrong.” She emphasized the word “were.” “Until proven otherwise, you are not wrong. The Captain navigates by his gut, his instinct. All of the instruments in the world are not always reliable. He has that natural feeling about things, which he honed through experience. You are going by instinct, too, Carl. While you may not have the same depth of experience as Captain Lump, you’re going to do all right.

  “If it means anything, you have my confidence.”

  “Thanks, Uniqua. That means a lot.”

  “Now, let us think of other things,” the Unicorn suggested. “I believe in my heart that the Lord of Power wishes you to succeed. Did you happen to observe his mountain before the storm while we were flying close by?”

  Carl shook his head. He did not want to stop watching through the gloom for imminent danger. “I was sulking in my cabin.”

  “Then, you missed a great red light that flashed briefly. I believe that this light was aimed at us. It means that the Lord of Power is watching us. He has probably been watching us all along. If he did not want us to succeed in our mission, then I am sure that we would have failed long before now. If he wanted to destroy us in the air, then I am also sure that we would not be having this conversation right now. Take heart, child. The adventure has still only begun.”

  “You think that Lord Power is helping us?” Carl asked, turning around to look at the Unicorn.

  “Most assuredly,” was her answer.

  “Then why didn’t he just let us get to Big City?”

  “Land ho!” a crewman suddenly shouted, and again Carl’s attention was riveted to the front. The boat had descended beneath the thickest of the clouds, and he could now see the ground faintly through wispy haze. They had passed over the mountains safely. Foothills lay below them, and beyond them were the lush forests of the Land of the Missing Dinosaurs.

  “We need to descend now!” Carl exclaimed. “Otherwise, we’re going to miss the forests altogether.” He was about to turn and run to the Captain’s cabin when he spied Lump standing on the deck. The look on this Dwarf’s face told him that the ship was descending about as fast as it could. They were still dependent on luck and fate to find a safe landing site.

  Karen ran up to him and looked over the side. “We made it!” she breathed.

  “Not yet,” Carl reminded her. “There’s still a chance that we’ll overshoot the forests and land in Lava World.”

  The flying boat descended painstakingly slow. The forests stretched out for a long way, but in the distance the children could see a hot-red glow that marked the volcano that sat in the middle of Lava World. The problem was the forests did not seem that much nearer for a landing, and they were spaced too close to allow a clearing, while the volcano grew closer.

  “We’re not going to make it,” Carl declared, slamming his fist on the railing.

  Even now, although the treetops were only a hundred feet beneath them, the trees were thinning. Old lava flows had made inroads into the forest, and where trees no longer grew, a great desert of hardened lava awaited them. It was apparent that they had no choice but to land on this barren expanse.

  “Brace for a hard landin’!” Captain Lump bellowed, and the crew ran to grab onto something sturdy.

  The sparse stands of trees were gone. Only old lava claimed the land now. It was fortunate that it was old and that the heat that had formed it had long died out. But lava is an unforgiving surface. It is rough, sometimes brittle, but it can do a lot of damage to a wooden boat. Even with the slow descent, they were landing at an angle, not straight down (like a hot-air balloon or a helicopter) like they originally planned. That meant they would be scraping the bottom of the boat, as it glided in for a landing, and more likely than not, there would be a lot of damage done before it came to a stop.

  No one saw the boat hit the lava field, but they sure felt the landing. The bow hit the ground first, a bone-crushing blow that jarred the ship sharply and everyone aboard her. For a split second, the bow bounced back up into the air as if to take flight. But then the entire keel, or bottom, of the boat struck the ground hard. Sounds of breaking timbers fueled new fears. The crunching of rock and wood together seemed to last forever, as the boat did not want to stop. In the end, friction finally halted the forward momentum and brought the crippled boat to a gut-wrenching stop.

  “Damage report!” Captain Lump ordered as he jumped to his feet, sending Dwarfs scurrying below to check out the severity of damage. He then turned to the Group. “You all gather here at the bow until we see how bad the situation is.”

  As our friends huddled together on the bow deck and feared the worst, Captain Helf joined them.

  “It may not be as bad as we think,” he told them. “Let’s hope for the best.”

  But alas, (a word much nicer to use than what some people like to say today when things go wrong), there was a lot of damage. The keel, the backbone of the boat, had
snapped in the middle. A large gaping hole below the waterline on the starboard side had been ripped open by several large lava rocks. Damage to the steering controls and navigational equipment would take days to repair.

  “She’s finished!” Captain Lump declared with finality.

  “Nonsense,” Captain Helf contradicted. “A few patches here and there, and we can get her airborne again.”

  “I tell you, she’s never gonna be seaworthy,” Lump yelled back. “There’s no raw material around to even make a patch. She’s finished, and so are we.”

  “Lump, my dear old friend. We’re not trying to float her in water. It’s an air boat, you ninny.”

  “Yeah? Well, whether she floats in the air or in the water, she’s not going to get enough altitude to fly over that!” Lump pointed at a mountain range directly west. Even though the mountains were far away, they still looked dark and menacing. It was as if they were warning the travelers to stay away. Not even try. Or, else!

  “What about the idea of bypassing the mountains via the sea?”

  “More madness!” Lump thundered, and that was the end of discussion.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  LAVA AND WOOD

  “Is this a good time to use up one of our wishes?” Carl asked his sister, who, like him, was in a very bad mood.

  “No! Not yet!” she replied with resignation. “We haven’t explored all of our options, yet.”

  “I tell you we can still fix the boat.” Captain Helf and Captain Lump were still arguing from the last chapter.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Captain Lump thumped back. “Whether you’re in water or in the air, you gotta have hull integrity. You can’t expect the airflow not to know there’s a huge hole in the hull. It’ll disrupt an even airflow around the hull. We might get airborne, but we’ll be doing cartwheels up there. There won’t be any goin’ this way or that.”

  “What about the instruments?”

  “We’re fixin’ em as fast as we can. But some parts can’t be replaced. You don’t see a smith anywhere, do you?”

  “As a matter fact, I do,” Uniqua interjected as she sauntered towards them.

  “Captain Lump’s jaw went slack, and maybe for the first time in his life he did not have something immediate to say. Finally, an incredulous “Where?” escaped from his throat.

  “There.” Uniqua pointed with her horn towards a sputtering vent in the lava field where molten lava struggled to make its way to the surface.

  “You’ve got to be kiddin’!” Captain Lump growled incredulously.

  “Necessity is the mother of invention,” Uniqua quoted an old proverb. “Mother nature will provide. All we have to do is figure out how to use those provisions.”

  “And where are we goin’ to find the right metals? Huh? What about wood? I remember you sayin’ that the trees can get mighty angry if we go ‘round cuttin’ and killin’ ‘em.”

  “There is plenty of dead wood around,” the Unicorn pointed out. “The heat from the volcano may have cured them already so they can be used. It’s at least worth a try.”

  “I don’t have time to think of possibilities.” Captain Lump was frustrated and angry. “Right now, I gotta try and repair things as best as we can. After we’ve done all we can, then I’ll listen to your cockeyed suggestions.”

  “Captain Lump—” Uniqua began indignantly.

  “Look! Why don’t you take your little Group and get off my ship for a while and leave me alone.” He turned to Captain Helf. “You can go with ‘em, too.” As he thumped away he added, “Then maybe I can get some real, serious work done. Hey! Lazy! That’s not how you do that!”

  “You know, it might not be a bad idea,” Captain Helf remarked.

  “What’s that?”

  “Get off the ship for a while. You guys go ahead. I’ll stay behind and make sure Captain Lump does things right.” He smiled and left to follow Captain Lump.

  There is a philosophy that suggests that there is a reason for everything that happens. And, for everything that happens something else is supposed to happen, too. Sometimes when something bad happens, we tend to get all pouty and begin to feel sorry for ourselves. And, when we get into these moods, we are not ready for the good things that are going to follow.

  Thus, it was a good thing that Captain Lump kicked the Group off the ship, because if he had not done so, we might have to end this story with a sad ending.

  “Well, children,” Uniqua observed, once their feet were on solid ground, “it looks as if it is up to us to save the day—again.”

  “You know, we should go towards the forest,” Karen suggested. “Maybe we can find some dead wood, like you said.”

  “It’s too far away,” Cassandra complained. Indeed, the first line of trees looked like they were a day’s walk away.

  “The exercise will do you good, Dear,” Uniqua replied. “But then again, if you would just learn to use those wings—”

  “Stop it!” Cassandra shot back hotly. “Why do you keep harping on me? You’re like a broken record: ‘If only you could fly. If only you could get big—and stay big.’ Well, I’m tired of you always criticizing me.”

  “I see.” The Unicorn turned away from the little Dragon and started to trot towards the forest. But if you could read her expression, she was actually quite pleased. She later told the children in confidence: “That is the most words she has spoken since we started this adventure. I think she is improving.”

  “Good lord!” Carl exclaimed a few minutes later. “What’s that stench?” He held his nose.

  “Sulfur, Dear,” Uniqua explained. “Smells like rotten eggs, doesn’t it? It’s normal. You’ll get used it in time.”

  A moment later, Carl sounded rather excited. “I saw something!”

  “What?” asked Karen, who had obviously missed it.

  “Something moving around the lava rocks.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “People?” Now Carl, having seen only a glimpse of whatever it was, was having a hard time believing what he saw. “Only, they weren’t really people. I mean, they looked like the had legs, but—” He trailed off, searching for the right words.

  “But what?” Karen prompted.

  “They looked like tongues of fire!” Carl finally got the words out.

  “Fire, you say,” Uniqua repeated. “Interesting. But not unexpected.” Even though the children looked at her questioningly, she said no more and continued walking towards the nearest trees.

  “You did say that you read there were fire people here,” Karen recalled.

  “Yeah,” Carl admitted reluctantly. “I didn’t say that I believed it.”

  All during this dialogue, the Group trooped away from the flying boat and towards the first dead trees that lined the edges of the lava field. The white, bleached husks of once living trees looked rather foreboding. They were dead, of course, and dead things remind us of unpleasant things. If the Group could not help make the ship flyable again, then they might all end up like these trees.

  But on the other hand—I like these words because there is always an alternative to every problem—the trees of the forest looked so green and alive. There, they should be able to find water and maybe something to eat. It gave the twins, at least, some hope. Their situation might not be as terrible after all.

  “We’re never going to get there,” Cassandra grumbled after about an hour of walking.

  Carl nodded and wiped sweat from his eyes. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the trees were walking away from us.”

  Uniqua snorted a laugh. “That’s a possibility.”

  I could bore you with a lot of words, meaning pages, by telling you that the Group walked a lot, that the sun was hot and bore down on them relentlessly without any relief (like a passing cloud), that everyone was becoming tired—and cranky, and that they were getting very thirsty. I could report that no matter how many steps they do, they seemed to be no more closer to the trees. I will tell you that
the flying boat appeared smaller and smaller until it disappeared altogether from view. Instead, I will jump right to the moment they finally reached the first tree.

  “Finally,” Cassandra wheezed, and she sat down with a thump, which made the rocky area around them shake a little.

  “Gaining weight are we, Dear?” Uniqua chided her. But I think she was more interested in knowing why the ground beneath their feet moved at all.

  “I thought it’d be larger,” Carl remarked, examining the dead tree. Indeed, it stood only as high as his shoulder. When he touched the bark, the tree suddenly broke off into several pieces. Broke off is not quite the right words. I mean that the wood splintered into long board-shaped pieces.

  “This is weird,” Karen remarked, picking up one of the pieces of wood. “It’s like it knew we need planks of wood to repair the ship. We won’t have to cut much or do any planning.”

  “The land provides,” Uniqua gently reminded them.

  “I’m thirsty,” Cassandra announced. “Find water,” she told the Rabbits and as quickly as they could, they started running towards the greener forest.

  “Don’t they ever get tired?” Carl asked.

  “If they do,” Uniqua told him, “they would never show it.”

  No sooner had the Rabbits disappeared into the trees, there erupted a great noise of screeching and bellowing and cries of alarm.

  “Oh, dear,” the Unicorn sighed, and she was off as if in a race, darting toward the forest to help the Rabbits.

  “Come on, Cassandra!” Karen called after her, as she and her brother doggedly ran to keep up with the Unicorn.

  “Oh, for goodness sakes,” Cassandra muttered. “The Rabbits can take care of themselves. All this getting up and walking—now running. It’s enough to kill a person. There’s no water to drink. The sun’s too hot. All this fuss for nothing. We should have stayed aboard the boat. We’re gonna die out here! Couldn’t we just make it a long death instead of running towards it? If I knew it was gonna be this much trouble to save my parents, I would’ve stayed home.”