Islands in the Sky

Chapter 1.1

Sema sat at the edge of the island, staring out into the sky. It was dusk, and birds were screeching, and the night was coming swiftly. As the sun fell below the horizon the hot ember glow of the surface, far below, became more obvious, a warm orange shimmer like a slow-burning hearth in the middle of the night. On a cloudless night, like tonight, the surface made enough light to see by, anywhere except the middle of the island, in deep among the trees.

Sema was playing the old game of tossing rocks out into sky and watching them float, alongside the island, keeping face with it among the other dirt and rubble that had slipped from its edges. She watched, seeing patterns, the same way clouds formed patterns in the sky.

Sometimes, she threw sticks at the floating rocks, trying to land one on the other, but it was harder than it seemed. They were always caught by the wind and floated aside and missed, and then tumbled, end over end, miles down to the unseen surface.

She watched rocks, and threw sticks, and every so often she glanced over at the other island.

A mile away, now, out across the empty sky. It seemed empty, abandoned, a little forlorn. Many of the smaller islands were, because people had sought the company of others in the years after the Rising, and a lot of islands like this, smaller islands that would barely support more than a few dozen families, those had never been resettled.

The other island was drifting on much the same path Sema’s island was. It was drawing closer, but only slowly. They had been watching it for a week, from here, out at the northernmost peninsular of their island. Watching for danger, and watching with greed, too, hoping the islands would touch, and they could tie them together and climb across to loot it.

They needed to find a hoard of the Ancients possessions. They were running short of much they needed, of plastics and medicine and ammunition that had been saved from the olden times. They needed water, too, and food would help a lot. Their island was overpopulated with almost fifty souls, so that every year, little by little, they grew hungrier. As well, for a year or two now, their island had been drifting through a warmer part of the sky. They had been short of rain, and had trouble growing their barley, and all their supplies were running low.

An encounter with a new island was a boon. If people hadn’t been standing on that particular of land during the rising, there could be all manner of relics of the old times there. As well, they could bind the islands together, for islands were mysteriously so light a stout rope could bind two onto the same path in the sky. They could bind the islands, and build a bridge between the two, and then have more land to farm, and more places to catch water, and the hope of better land and soil, too. They could hope for more fertile soils, over there, better soils from a distant part of the world to the dirt that made up their own island. They could hope for wild animals to hunt, and so fresh food that didn’t require a painful decision between meat now and milk or eggs later. They could hope for wood, or trapped rainwater, or some place to build a new weir or dam and increase their water supplies dramatically. Most of all they could hope for relics of the past, metals and plastics for repairing houses and perhaps even medicines, that they might be able to discover the use of.

Everything would be good once the islands touched, so Sema watched, and waited, as she had been for a week when it was her turn, wondering when it would happen, and when the islands would touch.