Travel Brochure
by Hei Yuet Wong
The King often dreamt of his childhood, when adventure was the world’s currency.
How simple it was, to pluck out exotic tapestries and metalwork by the handful, histories passing from hand to hand until they wound up on palace walls. When maps were still brimming with white space and unnamed land, when Christopher and Marco came home loaded with the new and shining.
Now the King had to clean up the mess. Now this King, who missed out on the fun, had to govern and make policy, chained to his desk. He tapped the tail-end of his quill against his mouth. An elbow knocked his paperwork over. Sighing, the King stacked them back in order—and froze.
Wedged between drab reports was a half-faded parchment, accompanied by a note in his great-grandfather’s hand:
Prophecy from the Glimmering State
“Ask for the exotic languages department,” called the King, giddy. The translator knocked on the door not long after, report in hand. The King slid his documents over and braced his elbows on his desk. He resisted the urge to kick his feet.
“Tell us about this treasure.”
“’Between the twin waterfalls of Gemville lies a box of treasure,” narrated the translator, “full to the brim with unparalleled wisdom. It opens only to the touch of the worthy, one of noble soul and lineage.’
“The royal fleet is ready at the docks, Your Majesty.” The translator paused. “Though word has it that the prophecy is but—“
“Say no more.” The King’s regal sleeve extinguished all hesitation. “We set off for Gemville at dawn.” Privately, he thought his voice could have echoed more.
The King set foot on Gemville at high noon, sunlight sleep-fresh over humble houses. To his right lay a lush forest, trunks wide as two men and leaves a brilliant verdant. Farther along the road, the forest sloped towards glittering ponds reflecting the sky, plate after plate of unblemished blue atop an endless plain. Silk curtains in the carriage twisted sweetly in the soft breeze, their fluttering overlaying the scene with a milky tint.
Deeper in, Gemville revealed sturdy farmhouses, home to murmuring cows and snuffling pigs. They smelled of the dirt-sweet countryside, its freshness stifling. Beyond them lay an unripe field shining gilded lime.
The King marvelled at the view, lingered on every docile eye, every bowing stalk, every patch of gold. Beautiful. He ought to commission a painting of Gemville and hang it on his wall.
“Ask for their finest inn,” ordered his Right Hand Man. “And the best cuts of meat from the livestock. Peruse their wood, too, and meet with the architects tomorrow; a permanent lodging must be erected for His Majesty at once.”
The young head of Gemville approached the king in the inn. By his arm, his wife fell into a humble bow.
“Good evening,” he greeted carefully, unfamiliar with the capital tongue. “What brings your Majesty to Gemville?”
The Right Hand Man gave the village head and his wife the prophecy. They crowded around it, one moment nodding agreeably, and the other, gesticulating with wild hands. Their primitive language rang crudely in the dining hall.
The King drummed his fingers on his armrest, impatient.
“It doesn’t point to a waterfall,” said the village head, “but the ponds south of Gemville. In the pond most loved by the sun sits a box—”
“We have our own experts.” The King waved his exposition away. “How do we get there?”
The village head and his wife shrugged at each other.
“You dig into the pond?”
“But which pond?”
“The one most loved by the sun.”
The King raised his eyes heavenward. Lord, he thought. These people were excruciatingly slow.
“You may go.” There was no point in keeping them if they were going in circles. “We shall look for the pond tomorrow.”
By tomorrow’s sunrise, the King was reclining on his couch—specially transported for the occasion—with his chin in one hand. The sun reached its sticky fingers across the ponds, each clear as a hand-mirror. Scarcely a few moments had passed when the King leapt out of his seat.
“There! That lake, so bright! It must be the place.”
A horde of officials followed his holler and marvelled at the view. Indeed, a single pond was alight, its surface just wide and round enough to cup the sun perfectly.
The workers made quick work of the pond. Their rubber boots stirred the bed and ushered frightened fish asunder, scales glimmering under the midday sun. Yet no sooner had the precession dug their boots into mud than the King jumped once more.
“Look!” he cried, proclaiming another a more suitable candidate. The workers trudged along the ponds, following his finger like ants. Towards another, and another…
Thus days, then weeks, then a month passed until all the ponds were bled dry, revealing nothing but dull scales. The Right Hand Man approached his King.
“Your Majesty,” he said. “Perhaps...”
The King heaved out of his seat. “We shall look elsewhere. It is unrealistic to expect a mere head of the village to be educated about anything.”
So the King went to the village’s priestess.
“My King,” she murmured, head bowing in respect. Behind her, the nuns dipped their heads as well. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
The Right Hand Man presented her with the prophecy. “What do you make of this?”
The priestess received it with reverent hands.
“This isn’t our language,” she whispered to her sisters. “But we must point him somewhere.”
The priestess procured a pen and paper. She wrote: ‘The prophecy speaks of a field that ripples as a lake, east of Gemville.” She hoped it would lead him beyond the village.
Yet the King stumbled upon their farmland. He descended from his carriage and beheld the field.
Each stalk of grain swayed to the wind’s whims, almost flush against each other. The King flicked one and watched as that lush gold shivered, wave after wave… not, he thought, unlike a pebble in a lake.
“There,” the King grinned. “See how it glimmers? This must be the place!”
His army of workers burst forth and pulled out their scythes. Each morning, they tore apart the immature field like clockwork; each morning the King stepped out of his gilded carriage and watched it fall. The army whirled on until they reached the horizon—and farther, still.
Once the bothersome wheat was ploughed, the diggers came in their yellow machines, jaws hanging low in their hunger. They roared and whirred their way through the dirt. Even in sleep they whined, insatiable, trembling at the thought of the next morning’s work.
Thus days, then weeks, then another month passed until the King looked over and reeled: a crude square, two men deep, had eaten the field and yielded nothing.
“Perhaps we shall look elsewhere,” said the King. “What other authority might we seek?”
“There is a story,” the village head hesitated. “But it might not be true. In the forest lives the old woman—”
“Some say she’s immortal—” added the wife.
“Who knows everything. In times of chaos, we try to find her—”
“But she hides too well. We never do.”
Clearly they weren’t doing things right, thought the King.
It took only a month for his army to burn the forest. At its smoking heart lay a mirror so wide, one might mistake it for a lake. The King pried it open with his sceptre.
“Look! This must be the place.” His footmen lay a scarlet carpet at the mouth of the entrance; it rolled in tandem with the King’s stride.
The King stopped in the middle of a cold stone floor. Shelves upon shelves of tomes loomed around him, crowding close. Scattered between volumes were intricate gold ornaments—any one of these, the King knew, could sell for a city. The wind’s chilling hand tugged at the King’s crown every other gust. It carried a burning, bitter tang.
An old woman strode in. She squinted at him with mirthful eyes. “And whose naughty child is this?” she asked in her village’s tongue.
“Before you stands your King,” snapped the King, indignant at her disrespect.
The old woman reeled. She turned and called, “Baby boy!” The King spotted a curtain covering an entrance leading elsewhere. “Someone is here!”
The old woman’s apprentice burst out of the makeshift door. His face paled at the sight of the King.
“Your Majesty,” he murmured. “What brings you here?”
“Who is this–this brazen woman?”
“I apologise. She’s illiterate. The old woman of Gemville, and I, her apprentice.”
To the old woman he said, “This is the new king.”
“Which one? Red and black or red and blue?”
“The newest one. Red, blue and white. Goes eight directions?”
The old woman frowned. “I don’t remember.” Side-eyeing the King, she added, “Why is he here?”
The King squinted at the fabled old woman: her dress eyesore-bright, hair unkempt, hands tarnished with soot. A chance was a chance, he thought. He handed her the prophecy.
She held it close to her face, grubby nails wrinkling the scroll. A bitterness clung to it when she returned it to the King. He frowned.
“This is no prophecy,” she answered, “but I recognise the legend. The box of wisdom used to lie between two waterfalls, yes, in the glimmering kingdom.”
“Isn’t that where this is? Gemville?”
“Gemville?” Her unfamiliar tongue twisted the soft ‘v’ into a guttural click. “This is not Gemville.
Does he think the names of places never change?” she remarked to her apprentice.
“But the legend is true?”
She chuckled. “Yes, yes. But there is no box.”
“How?”
“It’s just a slab lined from the waterfalls’ erosion. For all its appearances, it doesn’t open, stone that it is. I would know,” she added. “We tried everything on it.”
Obviously, it wouldn’t work if she tried it. The prophecy clearly detailed that only one of worthy and noble lineage could.
“If the box is still there, then we could find it.”
She laughed again. “We were so enamoured with that box back then, just like you.”
Then she sighed. “No one calls it a box anymore. With all our new kings and new flags, no one remembers old things like that… An old brochure won’t change anything.”
“He thinks it’s some sort of prophetic writing,” said the apprentice. “Look how he holds it close; it’s old, but not that old.”
“I never said it was old relative to me,” the old woman teased.
To the King she asked, “Well? Is there anything else?”
“How much for one of these machines?” He pointed to her paperweights.
The old woman chortled. “He thinks I use his money!”
By the time the King gathered the villagers in the square, dusk was folding the night neatly beneath its chin.
“I held an audience with your witch,” said the King. “There is no legend.”
“We apologise sincerely,” chorused Gemville. “We did not know.”
The King cast his eyes around Gemville. In front of him gaped a chasm where a viridescent field once stretched. To his left, burnt stumps and barren pens holding sickly animals; to his right, grey hoses slurping weakly at wet mud.
Where was the beauty? How disappointing.
“I see you have not done well to maintain your village,” said the King.
After a season of adventure, the King returned to his policies and taxes. Behind him rattled carriage after carriage, heavy with ancient books and intricate machines. The King ordered a recreation of a cave beneath a once-forest: “Abode of the Last Witch of Gemville”.
The King surveyed his treasure, hands on his hips. He placed his souvenir on his paperwork and turned it to face the lamp.
At the sight of its gleam a smile took over his face.
Perhaps, he thought, after the dust has settled…