Illustration by Cyber Child

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.

Gina and her brother Zack’s search for a monstrous Questing Beast, amid recurring nightmares, had led them to the end of their emotional rope.

Three things were clear: The dreams would not cease until they found the Revealer; they would not find the Revealer until they found the Beast; and if they didn’t find the Beast soon their dreams would kill them. Or drive them insane.

Gina started to put her foot up onto the coach step, but then whirled around and let out a forest-shaking scream. She screamed for two full minutes, perhaps longer. And then there was silence, as if her screams had drained the world of all other sounds.

“Gina…” Zack began. But before he could say more, she pulled out her blade and ran into the woods. For a moment he thought his sister had seen something, but then he watched in dismay as she attacked a spruce tree, swinging her broadsword at it over and over again, leaving a gaping piney wound. Then she assailed a boney paper birch, hewing it so many times it timbered to the ground.

Finally, she plunged her sword into the needle-covered soil, but it immediately reappeared in its sheath. She threw it again, as far from her as she could. Again it reappeared in its sheath. So she brought it back over her head and heaved it with a savage shriek. And again it reappeared. Then she dropped to her knees and yelled, “OK, Rhema, you win! I don’t care if I die, just get it over with!” She rose, straightened her harness, and walked silently to the coach.

The carriage zigzagged down toward the Frengan hill country, but Gina’s red-veined eyes remained fixed on the cabin’s interior, oblivious to her sheathed broadsword’s constant twitching. Across the cabin sat two tiny, bespectacled mouse-like Knowing Beasts, chittering unceasingly about numbers.

“Pardon me, miss, but you seem to have a form of palsy,” observed one of the little mouse-maticians. The other added, “Three out of ten patients who avoid medical treatment—”

“Thank you,” Gina replied, “but I have to get off.” She leaned out the window and banged on the coach’s copper shell.

The driver brought his horses to a halt. “But the pearl with which you paid—it is worth far more than—”

“Keep it.”

Zack jumped down from the top of the coach, followed by Gina’s mute swordplay instructor Buigor. Buigor knocked his knees against Zack’s, and made a complicated set of gestures at Gina.

“Buigor says he was only trying to prepare you,” Zack interpreted.

Gina nodded vacantly.

Zack signed to Buigor that Gina had forgiven him.

Satisfied, the hulky fellow gave him an affectionate whack, and then climbed back up onto his seat.

The coach pulled away, leaving brother and sister alone at the edge of a shrennel field.

“What’s going on, G?” Zack asked.

“This is Rennou,” she replied,

“Where everything went wrong to begin with.”

φ

Thoughts: The problem is, while we’re trying to move forward, our lives keep moving in circles.

To read the next episode, click here.