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.

Zack and his sister Gina had returned the world of Ismara. Abandoning his oddly-behaving sister, Zack had befriended a party of naims (gnomes) and amazed them with his gift of storytelling.

Only after Gina’s sixth mugful of meeth did the fisherfolk Shelcor and Maerith realize she was drunk; they were ashamed of themselves for not noticing which bowl she’d dipped into. Meanwhile, Gina’s brother was fast asleep in the alcove, along with his new naim friends. Calling the innkeeper over, Maerith said, “The girl will need a room.” She pointed to the alcove. “An’ see the boy has a bed too. Feed ‘em when they wake, an’ give ‘em aught ter drink, save the grownling’s meeth! We’ll pay yer when we return on the morrow.”

Shelcor and the innkeeper lugged Gina up the stairs between them. She told them she loved them three times, then threw up on the stairs and twice again in the room. The innkeeper’s daughter followed with a bucket.

Just before Maerith and Shelcor left, they asked the innkeeper to “remind the boy that spiffwits can’t fly.”

“That I’ll do. So, they’re human, eh?”

“Aye,” said Maerith. “Very.”

As the fisher folk left, they noted that, while Zack was still asleep in the alcove, the naims were preparing to depart.

——————–

Seven hours later, Zack awakened, wondered why his bed was rumbling, and opened his eyes. Why were there leaves overhead? “Oh, crud, that’s right!” he exclaimed, recalling how he and Gina had fallen into Ismara, been rescued from drowning, and been taken to an inn in the village of Kellansend. But that didn’t explain the rumbling. Or the leaves. He sat up. At that moment there was a violent jerk, as if his bed had struck a pothole. He lurched to the right and put his hand out to stop himself; it hit some sort of moving surface, causing him to tumble sideways.

“Whoa! What’s going—”

“Fair morn, Master Storysmith,” said Noddie with an unstifled yawn. She reached behind her and, with Sniggle’s help, pulled Zack back into an upright position. They were aided in spirit if not in substance by the tiny naim child Bud, who’d been dozing on Zack’s lap.

As his head cleared, Zack realized he was riding on one of the toy carts he’d seen when they first arrived at the inn. No more than five inches off the ground, and only about a foot deep, the tough little tumbril was crafted from rainbowwood, perfectly jointed and pegged with nary a nail.

It and three other woodwains were being pulled not by ponies, but by tiny deer. Size was where any semblance of daintiness ended, however: they were working deer, with wide muscular shoulders and woolly ochre hides. And at the front of each team…

Was a full-antlered stag.

φ

Thoughts: Have you ever been tapped for a previously unappreciated talent? Most of us, it seems, discover our life calling purely by accident.

To read the next episode, click here.