Green waves beat over the dinghy’s point­ed prow.

Nils raised a hand for the sting of salt, hunched bob­bing at the lit­tle boat’s for­ward bench. Ahead, over a rolling field of chop­py emer­ald, showed a stone-strewn shore; wet, black and shin­ing under a dif­fuse and shroud­ed sun.

He turned about, clutched the dinghy gun­wale. “That’s it?” he shout­ed over the slap and crash of waves.

“Sip, that is the isle,” called a sun­baked woman at the oars. She heaved, drew hard against the smash of surf, bare brown shoul­ders taut and rolling with sweat and bead­ing spray. Between she and Nils, at the toe of her boot, there lay the shape on a man wrapped in a wet brown tarp. A pair of tat­tooed hands stuck out, bound with stout cord. 

At that instance, they rose upon the back of a rolling break­er and came slam­ming down again. The tarp-cov­ered man flopped, sense­less. Nils bit his tongue, yelped, turned back ahead to grip both gun­wales, white-knuck­led. Behind, the woman grit her teeth. “This is a rough day for it,” she growled. “We are lucky to have not cap­sized, yet.”

Nils gulped. “Cap­size?” he pan­icked. “What do we do if we cap­size?”

“Look down,” said the woman, nod­ding.

Gin­ger­ly, wob­bling on his oscil­lat­ing bench, Nils did. Below, under mere feet of black-green, writhing surf, there stuck from the reedy seabed great shat­tered basalt teeth. Point­ed, wrapped with snap­ping pen­nants of weeds. He swal­lowed stiffly, looked away.

Behind him, the woman sneered, heaved her oars. “You avoid those. That’s what you do.” She grunt­ed, heaved again, spoke. “Many a man’s been dashed to tat­ters on those knives. Many a crew. And those who sur­vive come to dwell upon the Isle.”

“And they don’t leave, do they?” said Nils.

“No. They do not leave,” she con­curred. 

Between them, there was a groan. The tarp shift­ed. “He’s com­ing round, Clau­dia,” said Nils. “Stuff’s wear­ing off.” * 

“Won’t be long,” said Clau­dia.

Puff­ing, she drew them close to the low­er­ing isle, where­upon a break­er swelled and fer­ried them fast to the shore. Nils braced him­self. They sped, keel grat­ing on the harsh sand, meters up the beach. Nils leapt out over the prow, a stout cord in hand. Heels plant­ed, he hauled them up the beach before the reced­ing tongue of water could lick them back out to sea. Clau­dia jumped out, too, and they togeth­er dragged the dinghy to shore, ankle-deep in flow­ing slur­ry.

Nils stowed the rope, and, shad­ing his eyes, looked out down the beach, both ways, and to the grave­ly, dun­ish rise that obscured their view of the isle’s flat inte­ri­or. “Don’t see any of them,” he said. Behind him, there was a grunt, a thump.

“Good,” said Clau­dia, grunt­ed again. She had the uncon­scious man, now unwrapped, hooked under the arms, half dragged off the dinghy. He was shirt­less, paint­ed all over in grey, rude tat­toos. A greasy cur­tain of black hair obscured his eyes, and a cone­like leather muz­zle cov­ered his mouth and nose. Breath, shal­low, rasped wet­ly in the cone. “Mier­da. Come help me,” grum­bled Clau­dia, as one of the man’s tat­too-encrust­ed arms flopped free of the boat’s wale.

Oblig­ing, Nils leaned to take the man’s legs, clad in striped pris­on­er’s trousers. “Un, dos,” count­ed Clau­dia, and on tres they lift­ed the strid­u­lent body, car­ried him over the shore.

“Do keep an eye out for them, won’t you?” grum­bled Nils, with effort, back­ing awk­ward­ly over the beach. His boots squelched, sunk into the coarse, bil­gy sand.

“Be assured: I am,” said Clau­dia. 

Togeth­er, they man­han­dled their pris­on­er over the rise of the beach. Nils scram­bled, awk­ward­ly up, first, like climb­ing stairs back­ward. As he climbed, he twist­ed round to look, wideyed, at what lay beyond. He beheld a short expanse of dark-grey dunes; mounds of fine grav­el and peb­bles, and a pall of steam beyond them. Rocks stuck up amidst the dunes; rocks choked with slimy, sweet-smelling algaes and scraps of sea­weed. Scraps of plants, and- Nil’s pupil’s shrank as he beheld these- the scraps of tat­tered, fad­ed clothes. He shiv­ered, turned back to aid Clau­dia with their bod­i­ly load.

They crest­ed the rise. “Heavy bas­tard,” said Clau­dia. There was a crunch of grav­el: She’d let go, let the pris­on­er’s head and shoul­ders flop to the ground. She stretched her arms over­head. Nils frowned at her. “What?” said the dark woman. “I am stiff.” 

Nils scowled, and looked at the man.

“Lis­ten,” said Clau­dia, smirk­ing. “Be rel­a­tivis­tic: Com­pared to what we are sent to do to him, a kick to the teeth would hard­ly be worse than a bumped head.”

“Fine, fine,” said Nils. He looked out over the dunes, to scraps of cot­ton, flan­nel and lace amongst the wet weeds. Among them: The striped tat­ters of count­less prison uni­forms. Oth­er debris lay there, too. Lug­gage, belong­ings. Bot­tles, rope, scraps of wood. A pair of bro­ken spec­ta­cles. A comb. A stuffed, bedrag­gled ted­dy bear.

“Can we just leave him here?” he said, faster than usu­al.

“No,” shook Clau­dia. She bent to take up the man, again. “It is required that we take him to them. Else he might choose the sea over the lotus.”

“I had half hoped…” said Nils, look­ing out into the hot mist. There, in the white, stood twist­ed shapes of bare branch­es; gnarled like olive trees. “That I might not need to set eyes on them.”

Clau­dia nod­ded at the pris­on­er’s legs. “Vamanos. Pick him up. They will take him if he’s just with­in the trees. You won’t need to see them for long.”

“Fine.”

They set out over the dunes. As they did, the pris­on­er became more restive, like a sleep­er dis­turbed by night­mares. At times, he’d yank an arm or a leg, moan, crack an unfo­cused eye­lid. The pair strug­gled, near­ly drop­ping him often.

In the dis­tance, there loomed ever clear­er gnarled knuck­les of bare trees. Pale-barked, oily-yel­low plants. Not dead, but mere­ly bare, their glossy twigs bead­ing with odd white nubs of waxy, thick, one-petaled fruit; like calla lily blooms. Ahead, there grew a smell of rot­ting fruit. And a sus­sur­ant, wet cho­rus. Not wind, but a draft like low breath in a hun­dred gum­my throats. 

Abrupt­ly, the dunes gave way, and there stretched before the trio a wide, low vale. A bowl of soil grey as boiled meat, and upon it grew an unend­ing swathe of those pale trees. And these trees were not bare, like the oth­ers. They were heavy with fruit. Fruits like great, thick petals of waxy white. Indi­vid­ual suc­cu­lent pads sprout­ed from droop­ing stems.

Nils stepped over the lip, tripped down a ways, near­ly drop­ping the legs. He looked back, first down at where he tripped, then out into the vale. His eyes tracked low, neath the petals, and he star­tled, for under the petals reclined bod­ies.

Hun­dreds of bod­ies, sprawled and loung­ing with ill repose neath trees’ thick roots. Naked, waxy and sick­ly white as the petals they drew to their drip­ping mouths. They reclined, and they ate. Ate with a watery, drool­ing sloth­ful­ness, in orgy-esque piles, with drib­bles of chewed, yel­lowed pulp spilled down their sweat­ed fronts. Their wet, rap­tur­ous, whis­per­ing breath filled the place like low wind.

Nils stag­gered, stopped. 

“Mier­da,” cursed Clau­dia behind. “Vamanos, Nils. You must keep going. Do not look at them. We should not wish to attract their notice.” But Nils con­tin­ued look­ing. His eyes tracked low­er, to where the sleep­ers lay.

Sleep­ing, waxy peo­ple, piled like the dead under and around the fix­at­ed eaters. Dead­ly thin. Twist­ed and bent, trod­den upon. Some with limbs snapped or bulging, bruised, out of joint, so care­less were the gorg­ing wretch­es din­ing atop. Nils mouthed a curse as he beheld the worst of them: Some, not sleep­ing, but reach­ing fee­bly for the petals above, too bro­ken to ever reach. Some, rot­ting as they slept; grey-black, decay­ing, sprawled on flesh of sores half turned to mag­got­ed dirt, breath­ing through bloat­ed lungs. All sprawled on a soil of churned meat and rot­ted bones.

“Lord help us,” whis­pered Nils, as he tight­ened his grip, kept on towards the trees; stag­ger­ing, as if against his will.

Clau­dia shook her head. “She is not here,” she said, low­ly. She kept her eyes avert­ed, kept her grip fast under the car­ried man’s arms. “Theirs is not a blessed sleep. It is not hers to attend.” **

Between them, the man moaned, cried out, muf­fled, and squirmed. Nils near­ly lost hold of a leg. “Quick­ly,” insist­ed Clau­dia. “He wakes.”

Hur­ried­ly, they neared the trees’ edge. Here, there hung a foul odor; a cloy of sweat and putrescine min­gled with rot­ting veg­etable flesh. With­in spare meters of one tree, they could hear the eaters’ massed breath, loud, and the wet gnaw of their drool­ing jaws.

“Let him down,” whis­pered Clau­dia.

Nils bent, but as he did so, the sleep­ing pris­on­er spasmed, groaned loud in his muz­zle. He yanked a knee in towards his chest, and Nils lost hold. The man fell with a thump, bounced his head upon the ground. 

“Mier­da,” whis­pered Clau­dia. “Nils!” She looked about in fear, for many drool­ing, hair­less heads turned to eye them with clot­ted orbs.

“He kicked,” moaned Nils, apolo­get­i­cal­ly.

“Come, let us leave. Quick­ly. He is close enough,” beck­oned the woman.

They backpedaled, heels squish­ing over the soil and bone­meal. And as they did, sev­er­al eaters came forth. Lan­guorous­ly forth, with petal pads in hand and thick, drip­py mouths achew. They flocked slow­ly round the man, breath­ing wet­ly, ran slimy fin­gers over his binds, his buck­led muz­zle, his clothes, and, gen­tly, prized them free.

Nils and Clau­dia had turned, retreat­ed to the vale’s edge. A cough­ing echoed from the mist, and Nils turned to see: The pris­on­ers’ muz­zle was off, and he was splut­ter­ing, weak, now naked. Waxy limbs cra­dled his head, and, gen­tly, eased the suc­cu­lent edge of a petal between his lolling jaws. Con­fus­ed­ly, sens­ing the water, he bit, chewed, bit again. Ate. Nils shud­dered, turned, looked no more.

At the boat, they did not meet eyes. They turned the dinghy round, shoved off, and Clau­dia heaved them hard over the break­ers. Nils sat fac­ing her, hands clasped. The scent of rot clung to his clothes.

“Did they tell you what he did?” asked Clau­dia, after a time. Behind her, the sun had slid from under the clouds, drift­ed, set­ting over the low isle; orange and cloudy white.

“No.” Nils frowned, met her eyes briefly, looked away. “I do not know.” 

“Do you want to?”

Nils thought. “No,” he said. His lips part­ed. He frowned. “Only… did he deserve it?”

Clau­dia shrugged. “This? Only the worst receive this sen­tence.” She eyed him, expres­sion­less, and even­tu­al­ly said: “Does that make you feel bet­ter?”

The sun burned low, shot the waves through with a slick of waver­ing, burn­ing orange over oily black-green. Nils squint­ed, looked down at his soaked boots. He shook his head. “No,” he said; tone high, laugh­ing as if embar­rassed. “I don’t think any­one deserves this.”

Clau­dia frowned, nod­ded. “I think so, too.” She hung her head. “I don’t think any­one deserves this, at all.”

Close off the shore of sub­trop­i­cal Illa Araqua,there lies a small and for­bid­ding isle. A dead atoll pushed from the seafloor by some vol­can­ism, ringed by fierce tides eager to pull unwary ships to the dag­gers of rocks below.

Upon the isle grow lotus trees. † Gnarled, knot­ty things. Ful­ly ancient, with waxy pale bark, leaf­less boughs, and great knuck­led fists of roots. They grow amply there, knead deep the nour­ish­ing vol­canic soil. They have no need of the rich ash, how­ev­er: The trees find far more nour­ish­ing fare.

The trees draw to their roots rot­ting harems. Dis­in­te­grat­ing, drugged piles of liv­ing folk. Vital fer­til­iz­er. Crea­tures enchant­ed, dri­ven out of their minds by sweet nar­co­sis. Dri­ven into soporif­ic apa­thy by their con­sump­tion of the lotus trees’ opu­lent fruit. They are lotopha­gi: Lotus eaters. The woe­ful inhab­i­tants of that enchant­ed isle.

Lotophagi

It can­not be known pre­cise­ly how many lotopha­gi lay upon the isle. Those who have vis­it­ed the place will say there are many hun­dreds, with each tree com­mand­ing a harem of sev­er­al score or more.

Most are ship­wrecked: Pas­sen­gers and sailors, their crafts drawn too close to the island’s shal­low rocks. Oth­ers are pris­on­ers, deliv­ered to their hor­rid sen­tence by unscrupu­lous cut­ters hired for judi­cial means. All become strand­ed, trapped upon the grav­el shore. Unable to leave, to swim, for the break­ers and cut­ting rocks below.

In time, they all join the lan­guish­ing eaters. They join, though they can full well see the wretch­es’ drugged plight: their mis­ery; their rot­ting bod­ies. There is no fresh water on the isle, though, and thirst is, with time, per­sua­sive as a knife to the pan­icked throat. Those sug­gestible to its threat will eat quick­ly of the fruit; join the rot­ting mass­es. Those who resist sim­ply starve. They join the soil all the same.

Those who do eat of the fruit are lost. The fruits– broad, waxy, juicy petals– are suc­cu­lent and sug­ared. Redo­lent and ambrosial; pulpy and hon­eyed; dire and nar­co­tiz­ing. Mere bites remove all care from a fed mind, replace it with sloth and sleep inter­spersed with a need for lazy, con­tin­ued feed­ing. Feed­ing, so long as fur­ther fruit is present, unto death. Unto liv­ing rot and fur­ther nour­ish­ment for the lotus tree.

Lotus fruits are a rare and desir­able drug.

Removed as they are from the isle of the lotus tree, from an unend­ing source of the fruit, recre­ation­al eaters need not fear a peren­ni­al stu­por; though habit­u­al users quick­ly devel­op a gnaw­ing addic­tion. Nev­er­the­less, main­ly due to its scarci­ty and poten­cy, there exists an unend­ing demand for the fruit, which can­not be grown on the main­land. ††

On days when the tides are easy, bands of cut­ters and pirates make  their cau­tious way for the rocky isle. They go with trep­i­da­tion over the dash­ing waves, fear­ful of becom­ing them­selves trapped as enchant­ed eaters. Even still, on bad days, new seacraft take up shat­tered places on the toothy ocean floor; and count­less eaters wash up, strand­ed, upon the isle.

Those who make it, usu­al­ly and most reli­ably by small, maneu­ver­able dinghy or canoo, are like­wise care­ful on the isle. They cir­cle the beach­es, pick out a tree in the heady bowl of steam, and, fast and qui­et, go to its roots. Some with bas­kets and seca­teurs, some with har­poons. In coor­di­na­tion, they snip dozens of heavy petals and spear the lotopha­gi who lie there. They spear the lotopha­gi, as they fear the tree’s reprisal.

Undis­turbed, a lotus tree is a rel­a­tive­ly pas­sive thing. The worst it will do is send inquis­i­tive, waxy eaters, petals in hand, to lure near­by folk; albeit some­times en masse and insis­tent­ly. When dis­turbed, though, a lotus tree is a thing of fear. If, upon sens­ing attack or bulk har­vest, as pirates and cut­ters are wont to do, it will incense its harem.

All sailors will in time hear tales of lotus har­vests gone wrong. Of a horde of drowsy eaters, bloat­ed, soft, and waxy, sud­den­ly spurred as a wave of vicious, clutch­ing rage. They do not claw, or bite. No. They sur­round, crush, and con­strict as a sin­gle mass. They do so in a bid to force-feed who­ev­er they ensnare, even if it means drown­ing them in the eaters’ own nar­cot­ic blood.

Thus, the har­poon­ers strike with ear­ly gus­to, and the har­vest­men do not clip too greed­i­ly or too long, lest all them of join the tree. They squir­rel their goods in ice­box holds, eager for the sale, for on the Coastal mar­ket, a kilo­gram of lotus fruit fetch­es upwards of 55 gold­en pounds. A for­tune for men who often make a mere ten pounds a month.

Jour­ney­ers to the isle are almost sole­ly lured by scarci­ty and con­tin­u­al demand. They go for the fruit, the dread­ful, ensor­celling fruit, with­out ever a care for res­cue.

With­out ever a care for those who lie, still alive and not yet lost, neath the pale, devour­ing trees.

Ventures to the lotus isle

Ideas for expe­di­tions to the isle of the lotus tree:

1. Deliv­er a pris­on­er to the island (easy)
2. Bring a pay­ing man to the island. He is an addict and desires unend­ing fruit. (easy)
3. Res­cue sailors known to have wrecked on the island two days ago (easy)
4. Retrieve a polit­i­cal pris­on­er recent­ly sent to the island (hard)
5. Har­vest lotus fruit (hard)
6. Find a way to grow lotus trees on the main­land (hard) ‡
7. Estab­lish a for­ward research camp on the beach­es. The trees don’t like this at all (dead­ly)
8. Cut a lotus tree for a pay­ing magi­cian, who desires the queer prop­er­ties of its wood (dead­ly)
9. Pin­point a sup­posed Ancient Nor tomb in the island’s inte­ri­or and raid it (dead­ly)
10. Find the bod­ies of a roy­al fam­i­ly known to have ship­wrecked on the isle 200 years ago. The roy­al advi­sor is rumored to have a full hand of knuck­le­bones. (dead­ly)

Alter­na­tive­ly, any sail­ing near on the stormy waters round the island of the lotus tree bears the risk of way­ward boats wreck­ing on its shore. Fine, if unlucky, ran­dom encounter mate­r­i­al.

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