Image source: vistalore.com

The Wishing Map is a full-length fantasy that is being posted episodically at this site. To read the previous episode, click here. To read the entire novel, begin here.

After Zack and his sister returned to the world of Ismara, a contingent of naims (gnomes) took him to their secret city. And now they’d led him to a strange elevator inside an immense tree!

The heartwood lift, as they called it, was teeming with naims. Bulgy commanded, “Surwood!” And to Zack’s amazement the entire three-tiered structure began moving downward. When they reached the lowest level, the lift stopped and the crowd began shoving like children on a field trip. Zack was led down a set of tiny steps to Root Naimian’s lowest level. Tunnels ran in every direction, all lit by aromatic sap-lamps.

“Awesome!” he said, and was about to ask how the lift was powered when he saw the answer: creatures covered in thick, matted fur and as large as cows were harnessed to each of the three big rope pulleys under the heartwood lift. “Are they friendly?” Zack asked.

“Muldywarfs?” the muldy master snorted. “Muldies is gently-er than anything.” He reached up and scratched a muldywarf’s chin; its toothless mouth fell slack and its big pink snout quivered rapturously. The master tossed a worm as thick as Zack’s wrist into the muldywarf’s maw. The creature mashed it up, emitting slobbery grunts of pleasure. It would have closed its eyes, if it had any—the muldies “saw” with big fleshy feelers. The other two muldies pounded the floor with their immense sickle-shaped claws. “Awright, awright, yer duppy beasties, I haven’t forgotten yer. Who’s my luvvy muldies, eh?”

Zack was given a long tour of Root Naimian, riding a companionable muldy named Clodd. Every time he started to object that he must return to Kellansend, the naims would point out a new wonder: “Looky there, Master Zaggyzim, that’s the biggest Mushroom Chamber in all Ismara!”

Because the cloud-piercing rainbowwood trees had no taproots, Zack learned, they were only able to stand century after century by literally holding each other up—the result of the Root Naims’ tireless work in weaving their root ends together!

When it was time to leave, Lyffwin shouted, “Garwood!”  The triple-braided rope untwisted into three separate strands again as the muldywarfs began pulling.

When they reached the ninety-story-high treetops, a thousand Leaf Naims were waiting to show Zack “the most beautiful-est part” of their great city. If Root Naimian had been mind-boggling, Leaf Naimian was breathtaking. The leaves were aglow with multi-colored weipals (seed-bearing blossoms) that grew in the highest boughs and propellered down to sow infant rainbowwood trees. Here, tree limbs were trained to grow into living stairways, bridges and tunnels cleverly fitted with levers, gears and pulleys. If, as the humans said, the naims were cheldings (children), they were the most ingenious cheldings Zack had ever seen!

Just as Root Naimian was full of muldywarfs, Leaf Naimian was full of grookwarfs, big emerald-colored birds who coddled the naim toddlers, evenly dividing pre-digested worms between them and their own chicks. Together, the crown naims and grookwarfs wove boughs together, enabling the rainbow giants to weather autumn gales and wintry squalls.

Zack suddenly burst out of his mental cocoon:

What am I doing? I have leave!

φ

Thoughts: Have you ever stumbled upon a “secret wonder,” a marvelous place you couldn’t believe you’d never heard of it before?

To read the next episode, click here.