Image by Bruce Smith

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 Zack’s search for a monstrous Questing Beast has led them to Rennou, where Gina was previously celebrated as the village’s dragonmeer.

Gina stood staring at the rust-brown stalks for half an hour while Zack sat in the dirt thumbing through her big Frengan history book. He finally glanced up. There couldn’t be more than a half hour of light left. Slamming the book shut, he said, “Look, we can’t stay here forever, G! I mean, you know people in that town, right? We should just…Gina?”

His sister had begun walking down a barrow path between two shrennel fields. As he trailed after her, Zack pinched one of the stalks between his thumb and fingers. It instantly disintegrated. “Whoa? Why are these so messed up?”

Gina palmed a handful of shrunken seeds and stared at them, willing them not to be dead. “No, no, no, no…” she muttered, and then began walking toward the village.

The sun was below the horizon now, and shadows were invading, stealing color. Whatever it might once have been, there was something incredibly sad about this place. A few of the shops had lighted lamps within, but none without, as if they were saying, “Come in. Or don’t. We don’t care.” A handful of people moved along the main avenue. No one stopped to chat. No one even seemed to notice Zack and Gina.

The tallest structure in the village had a free-standing roof supported by eight beautifully carved pillars, but the nearest was completely shattered, and the corner of the roof had collapsed. Something powerful must have crashed into it. The stalls inside (Zack could see now that it was a marketplace) had been moved to avoid further destruction, but no real effort had been made to repair anything. As his eyes adjusted to the shadows, he began to make out the details of a huge building behind the marketplace.  “Hey, there’s a big honkin’ house over there!”

“The Dragon Manse,” Gina whispered. She started walking toward it, stepping over benches and rough-hewn crates full of rotting melons and fermenting grapes.

As Zack drew nearer, he could see that the house had castle-like doors and a lavish porch in front. There were painted carvings of dragons everywhere. It was the most ornate building he’d ever seen. He worked his way between the booths until he arrived at his sister’s side. One of the Manse’s gables was dangling like a half-severed limb over the fire-blackened porch. “What happened here?”

Gina fingered the charred wood, and her eyes began to fill with tears. “Oh, Puff,” she said, referring to the little dragon she’d adopted, “what have you done?

“What have they done to you?”

φ

Thoughts: When the things we love come to an end, the love itself remains, as proof that they mattered–and still do.

To read the next episode, click here.