here, and Peter rapidly grew very hot. By the position of the Sun in the sky, it must have been coming to around midday. He groaned: he had been here less than two hours and already he had fallen and hurt himself, was hot, sweaty, and thirsty. This was not going to be a very good year, and for the first time he actually took seriously the notion that he might die during this exile.
He reached the reeds and cut one down with his knife. It was around seven feet long, and he cut it into sections, using the knots as dividing marks: each piece was between a third and a half of an inch thick, and between nine and fifteen inches long. Except for one, he then slipped all the sections into one of his pockets.
The piece he still had in his hand, he split into four flattish lengths, and evened them a little with his knife. Then, holding them tight together, attempted to cast a small spell with them, using them as a two-stick: a spell to make one of the other pieces levitate slightly for a few seconds.
Having to hold the sticks together made it difficult to cast with his improvised two-stick, but it was better than nothing: now he had a means to cast simple spells. He took one of the other bamboo tubes out of his pocket and poked the pith out of it with one of the thinner sticks, and rested it on the sand, kneeling over it as he slowly and carefully began his attempt to make a purifying straw out of it.
He was working on the fly, with a tool that was very far from ideal, but Peter had an idea how the spell might work and how he might implement it. After spending ten minutes planning and polishing, he spent nearly half an hour casting, getting it wrong, scrubbing it all, and starting over. Eventually, however, he was confident that it had worked, and he went to the edge of the sand to test it.
Leaning over the edge, he put one end of the straw into the water and one into his mouth, and sucked. The water tasted clean enough; at any rate it didn’t taste salty. He drank desperately for a moment, and then remembered himself and stopped. He stood up and slid the straw into another pocket, so as to know it was that one – and not one of the others –with which it was safe to drink.
He knew he needed to find food as well, which would be a bit more of a problem because he wasn’t entirely sure what kinds of plants grew here other than the trees he had already seen, and none of those were fruit-bearing trees. Likewise, he didn’t know what kinds of animals would live here, which meant he may have to resort to catching fish from the sea. In a way, he was excited by the idea, but he also appreciated that it wasn’t just going to be a couple of weeks that he was going to be here.
He started to walk around the island. He found a way back up the cliff soon enough, and as he walked he kept his eyes open for anything that might be viable as a food: he was now getting to the point of feeling hunger rather than just accepting its inevitability.
There wasn’t much he could find right at that moment, however, and it was going to start getting dark soon. Just as he didn’t know what he might use for food, he didn’t know what might come out at night. Food would have to wait until morning; if nothing else there would be fish in the sea. In the meantime, however, he needed some kind of shelter: there were vague noises in the growing night and he didn’t particularly want to find out what they were.
Never before had Peter known fear like this. Not long-term fear; the closest he had ever come to this before was in his old life, when letters came from the bank telling him he didn’t have any money – a sort of “what am I going to do” feeling with a little “shit, I’m going to be dead by morning” thrown in.
He stood still, looking around: no more progress was to be made moving around than standing and gathering his thoughts. He wondered if he might be able to make a few crude walls out of branches, and spun on the spot slowly, looking
He reached the reeds and cut one down with his knife. It was around seven feet long, and he cut it into sections, using the knots as dividing marks: each piece was between a third and a half of an inch thick, and between nine and fifteen inches long. Except for one, he then slipped all the sections into one of his pockets.
The piece he still had in his hand, he split into four flattish lengths, and evened them a little with his knife. Then, holding them tight together, attempted to cast a small spell with them, using them as a two-stick: a spell to make one of the other pieces levitate slightly for a few seconds.
Having to hold the sticks together made it difficult to cast with his improvised two-stick, but it was better than nothing: now he had a means to cast simple spells. He took one of the other bamboo tubes out of his pocket and poked the pith out of it with one of the thinner sticks, and rested it on the sand, kneeling over it as he slowly and carefully began his attempt to make a purifying straw out of it.
He was working on the fly, with a tool that was very far from ideal, but Peter had an idea how the spell might work and how he might implement it. After spending ten minutes planning and polishing, he spent nearly half an hour casting, getting it wrong, scrubbing it all, and starting over. Eventually, however, he was confident that it had worked, and he went to the edge of the sand to test it.
Leaning over the edge, he put one end of the straw into the water and one into his mouth, and sucked. The water tasted clean enough; at any rate it didn’t taste salty. He drank desperately for a moment, and then remembered himself and stopped. He stood up and slid the straw into another pocket, so as to know it was that one – and not one of the others –with which it was safe to drink.
He knew he needed to find food as well, which would be a bit more of a problem because he wasn’t entirely sure what kinds of plants grew here other than the trees he had already seen, and none of those were fruit-bearing trees. Likewise, he didn’t know what kinds of animals would live here, which meant he may have to resort to catching fish from the sea. In a way, he was excited by the idea, but he also appreciated that it wasn’t just going to be a couple of weeks that he was going to be here.
He started to walk around the island. He found a way back up the cliff soon enough, and as he walked he kept his eyes open for anything that might be viable as a food: he was now getting to the point of feeling hunger rather than just accepting its inevitability.
There wasn’t much he could find right at that moment, however, and it was going to start getting dark soon. Just as he didn’t know what he might use for food, he didn’t know what might come out at night. Food would have to wait until morning; if nothing else there would be fish in the sea. In the meantime, however, he needed some kind of shelter: there were vague noises in the growing night and he didn’t particularly want to find out what they were.
Never before had Peter known fear like this. Not long-term fear; the closest he had ever come to this before was in his old life, when letters came from the bank telling him he didn’t have any money – a sort of “what am I going to do” feeling with a little “shit, I’m going to be dead by morning” thrown in.
He stood still, looking around: no more progress was to be made moving around than standing and gathering his thoughts. He wondered if he might be able to make a few crude walls out of branches, and spun on the spot slowly, looking
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