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 it from the start, click here.

In search of an elusive Beast, and prodded by a pushy sword, Gina and her brother Zack had boarded a coach bound for eastern Frenga.

Zack had figured out how to pantomime-converse with Buigor, the mute swordsman, and then progressed to telling him stories. Entranced, the childlike warrior soon began acting out parts of his own. In short, they got on brilliantly. By the time the coach stopped for the night, Zack had convinced Buigor to teach Gina how to use her broadsword. Lessons would begin the next morning.

The moment she fell asleep, Gina’s dream returned. This time she was both hero and disembodied viewer. “Noooooooooo!” hero-Gina groaned, but viewer-Gina had no idea why. Then she saw that the mysterious stranger was on his knees before her, his head bent–he was no longer wearing the golden helmet–and all around them the Dark Tinkurs were closing in. Had she and her brother failed in their mission? Suddenly, she realized that hero-Gina had the helmet, and that the moment she put it on she would be able to save everyone! Yet she could not bring herself to wear it. Why?

Zack dreamed too: He was no longer in the cloistered chamber where the Dark Tinkurs worked their obscene magic. Instead, the monster he’d become was hurtling through a village, the air filled with the coppery stench of blood. Bulbous and unnatural, he waddled on ill-fitted joints, full of pain and rage. He loathed the Tinkurs for making him this way, but their power constrained him, and so he vented his anger at every other living thing. Why does hurting others make me hate them more? he wondered.

Gina was shaken brusquely awake.

“Put this on.”

“What?”

Something landed on her chest with a flump. She unlatched her eyes and squinted at the grayish bundle.

“It’ll protect you,” said Zack. “It’s my hauberk. There’s a lady outside with meat pies. They’re kinda gross, but eat one anyway and come on. Sword practice starts now!”

Gina put the hauberk on by pulling the sword’s harness down one side at a time, and then dragged herself off to sword practice.

It would have been fun, if hadn’t been so real. Gina learned that her double-edged broadsword was designed not for stabbing but for hacking. Buigor showed her all kinds of double-handed cuts, including a nasty manchétte (upward cutting blow) for destroying her opponent’s unmentionables, a vicious 45° verbé for severing legs at the knees, a horizontal scissor slice for disemboweling, and a windmill chop for cleaving one’s enemies “atwain”! Would she ever have to use such horrific moves?

Would they be used on her?

φ

Thoughts: Bullies assault the weak, professing to “teach them a lesson.” But heroes face the powerful, and in prevailing teach themselves.

To read the next episode, click here.