Artwork by AlectorFencer

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.

In an attempt to break free from the naims (gnomes) who’d chosen him as their Master Storysmith, Zack had picked twenty semi-finalists, from whom he planned to announce multiple new storysmiths—before making his escape.

“Slipstreak,” Zack asked, “what do you see in this rainbowwood plank?”

“I…I’m not sure,” the teenage Leaf Naim stuttered.

“Yes, you are. Go on.”

“Well…I sees a house on a hill top…”

The gray spot in the grain had a patch of gold that did indeed look like a thatched roof. “I see it!” said Zack.

“An’ there’s a human lady…”

“Yes?”

“…with a thousand cheldings (children)!”

“Yes, I see them!” said Zack.

Waves of laughter rolled through the clearing. Zack’s more-than-one-story-at-a-time idea had struck the naims like discovering a meal could have more than one course! They began flooding the field, anxious to play-act the comic fable.

“Wait!” Zack shouted. “There’s more!”

A heroic odyssey and a naim sit-com were told next. Then tiny Reetie revealed a tragic tale of war between armies of naims who’d never fought before, and all twenty thousand spectators began to weep. Had this happened in their past? Could it happen again? Stern-visaged naims pantomimed hurling rocks and firing arrows. Others went down in agony, cradled in their comrade’s arms, and Zack saw vividly that not all naim play was fun.

“So which story is best,” he asked them, “The Sorcerer and the Shooting Star or The Thousand Cheldings?

Mad cheers rang out for both.

“And what about the ones yet to come?” The crowd was thunderstruck. No of them had ever conceived of more than one story at time, much less a virtual banquet of legends!

One by one, each of the remaining Semi-Finalists unfolded their stories, and each time the crowd rushed onto the field to pretend them. Then Zack began to notice two distinct changes: First, as the stories piled up, more and more naims began exclusively pretending the stories told by their side. Second, and more disturbing, some stopped pretending their own stories and began disrupting the others’ stories.

“Wait!” Zack shouted. “We gotta eliminate somebody or we can’t have a winner!” Blank stares. “For somebody to win,” he explained, “somebody’s gotta lose.”

To a culture whose very existence required cooperation, where everyone—naims, grooks, muldies, rainbowwood trees, and a thousand other life forms—either won or lost together, Zack was saying that you could only win if someone lost! It couldn’t be true, and yet it was coming from the Master Storysmith himself.

The sky over the clearing began to darken.

φ

Thoughts: How many disasters have occurred for which each of us has unknowingly laid the groundwork?

To read the next episode, click here.