Distopia (Land of Dis)

by Robert Kroese

  Five

  Dawn revealed that the island was not much larger than Wyngalf had imagined—perhaps three stone throws across. Most of it was comprised of rough, porous rock, although there was a small stretch of sand in a recessed area near the center. As this offered a bit more comfort and shelter from the wind than the expanse of flat rock on which he and Evena had spent the night, they made their way over the rocks and lay down on the sand, soaking up the warmth of the sun. They dozed there until almost noon, when Wyngalf was awoken by thirst. He left Evena to sleep while he climbed back onto the rocks. He managed to find several small puddles of rainwater that had collected in depressions in the rock and lowered himself to slurp water with his mouth until the thirst abated. An intense feeling of relief lasted for about ten seconds, after which his awareness was seized by a ravenous hunger. He pushed this away and continued exploring the island.

  There was nothing to do about the hunger; other than a few small trees, scraggly shrubs and weeds, there was no vegetation on the island. Wyngalf spent half an hour traversing the perimeter of the island to make sure of this. He knew that various small crustaceans, mollusks and fish made their homes in tide pools, but the ocean swells here were apparently too irregular to be amenable to such denizens. Except for a few barnacles and moss clinging to the rocks, he saw no life in the water at all. He had the feeling that their stay on this island was going to be short and unpleasant.

  When Wyngalf returned to the sandy area, Evena was awake and looking around for him in near-panic. He had to suppress a laugh at this; where did she think he had gone? But, adopting his best reassuring preacher manner, he explained that everything was going to be alright and told her about the water he’d found. The mention of water snapped her out of her panic; he had no sooner pointed to the area where he’d found the puddles than Evena had set to scrambling over the rocks toward it.

  Wyngalf found it difficult not to stare at Evena as she clambered away from him. She had chosen a much more practical outfit for her “adventure” than the frilly dresses Wyngalf had previously seen her in—a pair of rugged trousers, a plain green blouse, and boots that might have been borrowed from her father—but the way the damp fabric clung to her body, it only accentuated her femininity.

  When she had disappeared over the rocks, Wyngalf allowed himself a moment of despair. He sank to his knees and pounded the sand with his fists. Once again, he had been spared death, but why? His pack along with his provisions and the rest of his meager belongings had gone down with the ship, and whatever Evena had brought along had been lost when her barrel splintered apart. They had no food, no real shelter, and minimal fresh water. What was the point of not drowning only to die of starvation a few days later?

  No, he thought, forcing himself to get to his feet. This was another test. His faith had sustained him thus far, and he wasn’t about to abandon it now. He’d thought that his God had abandoned him when the Hafgufa swept him off the deck of the Erdis Evena, but he realized now with sudden clarity that it was his own betrayal that had led to him being thrown overboard. If he had remained firm in his faith, the monster would have withdrawn innocuously, but he had flinched—and his momentary weakness had cost the crew their lives. It was only through the infinite mercy of Illias the Interceder that Evena had not perished as well.

  He and Evena had been spared for a reason. He didn’t yet know how, but somehow they would get off this island and continue their mission. He just needed to have faith.

  He was still pondering this when Evena reappeared, climbing over the rocks with something cradled in her arms. He realized after a moment that it was several planks from the barrel that had been crushed against the rocks.

  “I found these floating in a pool over there,” Evena said, indicating somewhere over her shoulder. “I thought we might be able to build—”

  “A signal fire!” cried Wyngalf, suddenly encouraged. He had seen the planks as well, but had been too focused on the idea of locating food to give them any heed. As far as he knew, they were hundreds of miles from civilization and shipping lanes, so it was very unlikely that anyone would see a fire—or respond to it, if they did—but seeing Evena with the planks cradled in her arms, he was suddenly convinced it was a sign from Ganillion the Messenger. The fragments of the barrel should have been swept out to sea, but somehow these planks had been caught in one of the shallow pools on the periphery of the island. Once again, his faith had been rewarded!

  They laid the planks out on the sand to dry, and then set about gathering branches from trees and shrubs that grew sporadically about the island. It was hard work, since they had no knife or tools of any sort, but after a few hours they managed to assemble several small piles of brush. The idea was to get the fire started with the planks and then, once it was burning strongly, to feed it with progressively greener vegetation to create smoke that could be seen from a long distance. During his preparations for his missionary journey, Wyngalf had learned—in theory—how to start a fire simply by rubbing two pieces of wood together. He’d never managed to actually perform this feat, even with perfectly dry wood that had been specifically cut for the purpose, but he was certain he could do it, given sufficient motivation.

  After collecting as much brush as they could, they rested under one of the small trees while they waited for the planks to dry. Evena argued that they should start the fire when it got dark, as it would be more visible from a distance, but Wyngalf suspected she was more concerned about keeping warm than alerting anyone to their plight. The sandy area’s recessed position made it very unlikely that the fire could be seen even by a ship that had drifted so far off course that it came within a few miles of this island. They might have tried to get a fire started on one of the rocky outcroppings, but Wyngalf hadn’t been able to find a flat area big enough, so they were stuck trying to get the fire going on the sandy plateau. He was convinced that a plume of thick smoke was their best bet, and it would do them no good to stay warm for one night if it doomed their one chance to get off the island. Even with all the fuel they’d collected, the fire wouldn’t last much longer than a few hours. In any case, it was going to take at least a full day for the planks to completely dry. So they would have to spend another night shivering together in the dark.

  Wyngalf was not entirely inexperienced in matters of the opposite sex; the Noninitarians couldn’t afford to turn away any prospective devout, so the Stronghold admitted both men and women. The sexes were largely sequestered in separate sections of the Stronghold, but occasionally met for communal meetings and worship services, which were notorious occasions for fraternization. Such activity was officially frowned upon by the Noninitarian hierarchy, but little effort was put into stopping it. Cynics grumbled that turning a blind eye to this illicit hanky-panky ensured a steady supply of “orphans” to be turned into future devout, and the seemingly arbitrary enforcement of anti-fraternization regulations tended to bolster this claim: it was rumored that Bishop Frotheckle kept a secret record of the familial connections between the various orphans and worked assiduously to prevent devout from unknowingly engaging in incestuous relations with one another. Wyngalf had on a few occasions given in to the temptation of sneaking away with one of the devout from the opposite side of the Stronghold, but his own uncertain lineage—as well as his lack of confidence in the record-keeping of the bishop—kept him from letting things go too far.

  Ordinarily, then, spending the night with an attractive young woman who was almost certainly not a blood relation might have been a serious temptation for Wyngalf, but the first night they had been so cold, wet and tired that the idea of doing anything more strenuous than shivering had seemed singularly unappealing. They had since dried off and gotten some rest, but now a feeling of protectiveness had come over Wyngalf. It was, after all, his fault that Evena had stowed away on the Erdis Evena, and it could hardly have been a coincidence that the two of them had been marooned here together. Wyngalf had a responsibility to watch out for her. In any case
, despite her confidence and physical maturity, she was not much more than a child. Perhaps some time in the future, if they somehow survived this, and Wyngalf had successfully indoctrinated Evena regarding the Fourteen Theses of Noninitarianism… but he still had his doubts whether Evena possessed the intellectual development to appreciate the sublime truth of his faith, and in any case she seemed in no mood for theological discussion at present. Her thoughts were on more immediate matters.

  “You didn’t want to go,” said Evena as they sat on the rocks watching the sun set over the ocean. “On the voyage to Dis, I mean. I could see it in your eyes when my father proposed the expedition. I thought you were crazy. Who wouldn’t want to go on an exciting adventure to a faraway land? But now I understand. You were right. This was a bad idea. And I was stupid to come along.”

  Wyngalf shrugged. “You lived a sheltered life,” he said. “So did I, up until five months ago. So I understand the desire for adventure. The problem with adventures, I’ve found is that they are by definition unpredictable, and usually when something unpredictable happens, it’s something bad.”

  “So you’ve been in predicaments like this before?” asked Evena hopefully, as if Wyngalf might be in possession of some universally applicable wisdom that could save them.

  “Oh, no,” Wyngalf admitted. “Nothing quite as desperate as this. I’ve been robbed, chased by wolfbats, nearly burned at the stake a few times. But being stranded on a deserted island in the middle of the Sea of Dis is a new one.”

  Evena nodded glumly. “We’re going to die here, aren’t we?”

  “No,” said Wyngalf, trying to exude confidence. “We could easily have gone down with the ship. I believe the Noninity saved us for a reason. We just have to keep faith.”

  “Your faith didn’t save my father’s men. They were all killed by the Hafgufa.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Wyngalf. “In any case, perhaps those men served their purpose already.”

  “They served their purpose and now your god is done with them?” Evena asked, a hint of pique in her voice. “Like an old pair of shoes whose soles have worn through?”

  “It is not for us to question the ways of the Noninity,” snapped Wyngalf, a little too harshly. He was taken aback by Evena’s brash impertinence. If he was honest with himself, he was also feeling a bit defensive. If he hadn’t flinched during his test with the Hafgufa, the men on the ship might still be alive. But there was no point in dwelling on the matter; if they were going to get off this island, he needed to keep his faith pure—and that meant pushing away any doubts about his own foibles. “Look,” he said. “What I mean is that we can’t help those men now. All we can do is hope for the best. I have to believe there is a reason we made it this far.”

  The sun had dropped below the horizon, and Evena got to her feet without a word and climbed back down to the sheltered sand. Wyngalf followed. They spent another night huddled together for warmth, Wyngalf once again acting the very model of propriety.

  Some time after noon the next day, Wyngalf judged the planks to be dry enough to attempt a fire. He broke one of them into several pieces by smashing it with rocks, and then spent the next six hours experimenting with various methods of rubbing the pieces of wood together in an effort to create a spark, occasionally taking breaks to get water or pound the sand with his fists and curse in frustration. He was so hungry that he took to chewing on splinters of wood that broke off during his efforts. It didn’t help. The sun began to set, and he was forced to admit he’d failed. They spent a third night huddled against the cold. Wyngalf had never before felt so defeated.

  He awoke early the next morning to the smell of smoke. At first he thought he was imagining it, but he opened his eyes and turned to see Evena beaming at him, a small fire burgeoning among a stack of splinters in front of her. He jumped to his feet and ran to it.

  “Don’t let it die!” he cried. She nodded, and gently placed a few more fragments of wood on the stack. “Don’t smother it!” he yelled.

  “Wyngalf!” she snapped. “Calm down.” Her fierce tone struck him like a slap across the face. He nodded dumbly, embarrassed to have faltered in his faith in front of Evena.

  Evena shrugged. “I learned how to do it from watching you,” she said.

  “You’re too kind,” replied Wyngalf.

  “Well, I learned how not to do it, anyway.”

  Wyngalf wanted to chide the girl for her impertinence, but found himself repressing laughter. “Glad I could help,” he said, falling back onto his elbows. He smiled as the fire grew and he gave thanks to Pamphloss the Provider for granting him the means of procuring their survival. The smile soon faded, though. The smell of the smoke had put him in the mind of breakfast, and his mouth was salivating in anticipation of food. But the odds of anyone seeing the smoke and coming to rescue them were, he had to admit, vanishingly slim. In all likelihood, he’d already eaten his last meal. And he’d vomited it over the side of the Erdis Evena. Once again, his faith was proving weak.

  Tending the fire at least gave them something to do. They built it gradually larger and larger, and then, when they had a roaring fire going, they started to throw green, leafy branches on it. Plumes of gray smoke went up a few feet and then, when it had reached the open air above the sheltered area of the island, dissipated almost completely in the wind. Wyngalf fell to his knees, defeated.

  “There’s no way anybody is going to see that!” he wailed.

  “You give up too easy,” Evena chided. She threw another branch on the fire.

  The girl’s childish mood swings were beginning to grate on Wyngalf. It was all well and good to have a positive attitude, but Evena’s hope, like her preceding glumness, was just an arbitrary sentiment that didn’t connect to anything, like a house without a foundation. If his own emotions were sometimes volatile, it was because he was grappling with profound issues of faith and destiny. Evena’s mood swings were just sound and fury, signifying nothing.

  “It’s pointless!” he protested. “There’s no land for hundreds of miles, and no ships come within twenty leagues of here. And even if one strayed near us, and someone in the crew happened to look in this direction, why would they go even farther out of their way to rescue a couple of strangers? We’re doomed.”

  “Boy, are you moody,” said Evena.

  “I’m not moody!” Wyngalf snapped. “I’m grappling with profound issues of faith and destiny!”

  Evena shrugged but didn’t reply. She continued to watch the fire, adding more branches to increase the output of smoke. But no matter how many she put on, the smoke never made it more than thirty feet into the sky before dissipating into an almost invisible haze. It didn’t take even as long as Wyngalf had estimated to go through all their fuel. The piles of branches were both gone, and the fire still continued to emit only an embarrassingly small column of inoffensive gray smoke. Soon even that shrank to almost nothing. So their signal fire had come to nothing, and now they were doomed to spend another evening freezing and hungry in the cold.

  As the fire died down and Evena too began to succumb to despair, a breeze picked up, fanning the flames but further dissipating the smoke. It was a strange sort of wind, as it somehow penetrated the shelter of the rocks and seemed to have no clear direction. In fact, as Wyngalf watch the remaining flames whip around erratically, it seemed to him as if the wind were originating from directly above them. A moment later, he and Evena were suddenly shrouded in shadow, and they looked upward in unison to see what was above them. What Wyngalf saw struck fear into his heart.

  It was a gigantic, scaly green reptile, with vast, bat-like wings. And it was getting bigger.

  Wyngalf and Evena sat there with their necks craned back and their mouths agape as the dragon lowered itself toward them. Wyngalf wanted to run, but there was no place on the island to go. If the dragon was determined to eat them, there wasn’t a thing they could do about it. As the creature drew closer, its great leathery wings sent blasts of wind t
oward them, extinguishing the fire and showering them with sand. Wyngalf clamped his eyes shut and held Evena close to him. All he could do was hope that it would be over with quickly.

  Then, suddenly, the rushing of the wind stopped, and Wyngalf cautiously opened his eyes. Evena must have done the same thing, because they screamed in perfect unison. Not five feet away from them was the emerald dragon’s head, craned downward on its long scaly neck to peer at them. The dragon’s head was the size of an oxcart. Its eyes were like great yellow marble bowls, and its teeth were like carving knives. They felt its hot breath emitting in long bursts from its nostrils.

  Wyngalf and Evena wrapped their arms around each other and cowered together, waiting to die.

  Six

  “Wow!” the dragon exclaimed, its voice like a baritone choir, “that was a long flight.” He paused, apparently trying to get his breath. “It must be 300 miles from the shore of Dis to this island. But sometimes you have to leave the beaten path to find a gem in the rough, and this place is definitely…” He trailed off, craning his long neck to survey the island. “…rough. Good grief, I’ve had bowel movements larger than this island. Easy beach access, I’ll give you that, but the amenities are positively primitive. This place is going to need a lot of work.” He spun around and climbed up the rocks behind him, spreading his wings to keep his balance. Wyngalf had to duck to avoid being smacked in the head by the dragon’s tail. When the dragon reached the top of the rocks, he made a long, slow survey of the island. Wyngalf noticed he tended to hold his head cocked slightly to the left, as if favoring his right eye. After some time, the dragon spread his wings, leapt into the air, and glided back to the sandy patch where Wyngalf and Evena stood. “It’s got potential,” the dragon said. “But I’d definitely put it in the fixer-upper category. How are the schools?”

  “Schools?” asked Evena.

  “You’re surrounded by fish,” said the dragon, with a touch of condescension. “Surely you’ve looked into the schools? Of course it doesn’t particularly matter if you’re planning on focusing mainly on tourism. What’s the zoning?”