Gatherer of All Things Great and Small

Belgorath of the Orb, Scourge of Humanity, the Contained One, Gatherer of All Things Great and Small, had come to enjoy his life at the bottom of the sea. He found a certain amount of peace gazing out at the fish eating each other, the urchins drifting by on gentle currents, and the sharks lazily circling the sea floor.

Once upon a time, an Andalusian Emir had cast the orb into the sea amidst accusations of “ungenielike behavior”. Yet had that man ever met another genie? No. He knew nothing of genielike or ungenielike behavior. It had taken two centuries for Belgorath to let go of obsessive thoughts of revenge.

It was, of course, far too late for revenge anyway, as humans lived such brief lives. But these thoughts helped pass the time.

He allowed his orb to fill with water to become more in tune with his new environment. As the years passed, a light, sandy sediment gathered along the bottom. One of his chief pleasures became raking it into precise rows and swirls, then gathering and placing small, round stones with great care to perfect his sand garden.

And then, without warning or premonition, for the first time since he was cast away, something new happened—a net of bright blue webbing descended upon him. It was woven of a strange material, unnatural and impossibly strong.

The waters grew gradually lighter as he was pulled toward the surface.

*

Today, Miguel and Louisa tried a new fishing spot, one tucked between two small islands, surrounded by rocky shoals they had never before dared to cross. For many years they had fished a nearby stretch of the Western Mediterranean, just as Miguel’s father and grandfather had done before him. But their line would end here—the fish grew ever scarcer, and the aging couple remained bitterly childless.

The latest haul was just as meager as the day before: a couple of flopping groupers and a handful of debris. As Miguel sifted through the muck, he saw something gleam. It was an old, ornate snow globe—who knows how long it had sat down there. Maybe it was worth something. He tucked it in a corner beneath one of the seats alongside his spare nets.

*

It was dark in this wooden chest, nearly as dark as the bottom of the sea. Belgorath could make out pile upon pile of the finely crafted nets that had snagged him, alongside an assortment of fishhooks.

With all his power and prestige, he had simply been discarded in a broken chest like so much flotsam. He would need to be careful with these powerful new beings who had dredged him up from the depths.

*

Back at their hut, Miguel unloaded the snow globe and wiped off the grime. Inside was a small, red-roofed stone cottage with a matching red wooden door, surrounded by beautiful swirls of white sand.

Louisa looked over his shoulder. “It looks like some of the buildings in the old town of Cadiz, near the cathedral,” she said. She shook the snow globe and watched as the building was engulfed in a silent, beautiful sandstorm.

Over the next several days, she would shake the snow globe each morning before they went out fishing, watching the sand drift in circles around the strange little house and telling herself it would bring them luck. The little old thing made her happy.

Each afternoon, she would find that the sand had settled again into pretty little patterns.

*

His orb shook violently, again and again, every morning for days, and each time he watched in horror as the remnants of his sand garden drifted past his window. He spent hours raking the sand back into place, carefully re-drawing the swirls that had kept him sane, or mostly sane, for all these years.

With great difficulty, he restrained himself from howling with rage and destroying these monstrous creatures on the spot. He waited and watched as they taunted him; he gathered as much information as possible, hoping to learn what he could about these creatures and their weaknesses before the inevitable confrontation.

He studied the fishing hut carefully. It was a mélange of contradictions—cheap wooden planks for walls and floors, with none of the golden goblets or gems or thick tapestries as many humans seemed to favor. Yet there also hung a magic screen on one wall, containing the living head and shoulders of some human or half-human creature who discussed events on the other side of the world. At first he thought it might be another genie that had been captured by the couple, but it ignored any attempts he made to communicate.

There was more. Heat filled the room from enchanted metal slabs on the walls, unconnected to any furnace. Light brighter than a hundred torches poured forth from an inverted brazier hanging from their ceiling. A small box that seemed to contain the souls of countless musicians entertained them in the evenings with stories and songs plucked on the strings of impossible instruments.

Could they be disgraced sorcerers, forced into poverty by a king? Or perhaps such magic was simply a result of fortunate scavenging, much as they seemed to have fumbled their way into possession of his orb.

Belgorath began to formulate a plan.

The next time they shook his orb, Belgarath kicked open the red door and strode out into the storm in his full glory—he stood no more than a few centimeters tall, but he projected and ballooned his presence so that he seemed to fill the entire room, the entire hut, the entire village.

“Who disturbs my rest?” His voice was high and thin, like the squeaking of a mouse, yet the walls shook with the power of it.

The two people jumped back at the sight of him. The woman, eyes wide and mouth hanging stupidly agape, brought forth a small black tablet the size of her hand. There was a bright flash—when she turned the device sideways to show her partner, Belgorath could see that she had attempted to enslave him there, but she had only succeeded in stealing a single split second of time.

“How dare you,” Belgorath said. “Do you know who I am? Do you know what I am?”

The man looked at him carefully before responding. “I think … are you a genie? Three wishes?”

Did this fisherman-sorcerer mean that he expected Belgorath to grant him three wishes? Where would he get such a ridiculous idea? And yet this would fit nicely with Belgorath’s plan.

“Very well,” Belgorath said. “What is your first wish?”

*

Of course, Miguel had thought before about what he would do in just such a situation—everyone does. He assumed that wishing for more wishes was out. Despite the genie’s size, it did not seem like someone to toy with.

“Tell me your first wish, human,” the genie said impatiently. “Now.” This was no song-and-dance Robin Williams genie.

Under pressure, Miguel couldn’t come up with anything. He looked over at Louisa, but she was just as confused as him. He didn’t want to waste wish, but he also didn’t want to fall into one of those famous traps where the genie grants exactly what you wanted, but they do it in a way that’s not at all—

“Listen, worm,” the genie interrupted his thoughts. “You can ask for anything in the world, real or magical, possible or impossible. Name your greatest desire, and it shall be yours.”

“Erm, money, I suppose. Enough that I never have to work again,” Miguel said.

*

With all the wonders of the universe at his command, the only thing this pathetic human could think about was a few handfuls of gold. The man had dedicated countless hours to perfecting his seacraft and the art of fishery, and yet his only wish now was for the means to stop fishing. It seemed that humanity had not much changed over the centuries.

“Your wish is my command,” Belgorath said.

*

Finally, Miguel would live like a king! He could give Louisa the life she deserved. No more smelling like fish, no more leaking roof, no more thin soup for every meal.

The genie told him something about how they should venture forth to his storehouse to count his newfound wealth. Miguel pulled up his banking app, and he felt a little lightheaded when he saw the new balance. He fell to his knees in front of the table. Louisa crouched down next to him to look at the phone, then she, too, slid to the floor. They must be the richest people in Spain.

“Your generosity is boundless,” Miguel said.

For some reason, the genie looked annoyed. “Will you not go forth to examine your newfound wealth? Tally your riches? Swim in your sea of gold?”

“Tally… yes, of course,” Miguel said. “I’ve just checked—you are our savior!”

*

“I see,” Belgorath said. “Just tell me your second wish.” He was beginning to regret playing along with this silly game. He would not allow them to wriggle out of it again.

*

This time, it was Louisa who spoke first. “Our greatest desire for all these years has been to have a child of our own, and now we have the means to give that child the best life anyone could hope for. Could you grant us this?”

“Your wish is my command,” the genie said. “Go to the nearest river and plant an apple seed on the bank. Sleep next to the seed—both of you must stay for the entire night without rising. I repeat: the whole night without leaving its side, no matter what, without returning here under any circumstances. In the morning, a tree will have grown, and upon its branches you will find your child.”

The next morning, they awoke from a fitful night, muddy, wet and shivering. They awoke to the sound of a baby crying.

They swaddled him with soft blankets in the morning sun, calmed his crying, and carried him back to the hut. Miguel hurried over to raise the temperature of their house, but he couldn’t find the thermostat. For that matter, they seemed to be missing all the radiators, too. And the old flatscreen TV that had been mounted on the wall, and all of the lightbulbs. And Louisa’s mobile phone.

“Genie! Genie, help! What happened?”

There was no answer.

They shouted at the snow globe. They tapped on the glass. They shook the orb until they could barely see the little house for the strength of the sandstorm they created. The red door remained firmly closed.

“Leave me alone.” The genie’s small voice battered them from all sides.

“Open the door,” Miguel shouted back.

“No.”

They peered through the storm into the windows of the ancient house. A miniature television glowed in a miniature living room. The room was ringed with very familiar radiators. The genie walked over to the window, stared out at them for a moment, and lowered the blinds. The blinds were theirs, too.

*

Belgorath could barely hear his new television over the shouting and hammering of the barbarians outside. They hit the outer shell with something, probably a hammer or a mace. But there was no way they would be able to crack the magical glass shield that protected him—greater beings than these had tried and failed.

He increased the volume on the wonderful wall-mounted device that he had liberated from their unworthy hands.

*

“Don’t worry, Louisa, we don’t need any of those things,” Miguel said. “We’re rich now, we can buy whatever we want.” He pulled out his phone and opened the website of the fanciest furniture store he could think of, filling the cart with all the most expensive things they had. It was a heady feeling.

~Payment failed.~

He opened his banking app.

~Account locked by Banco Santander in conjunction with the Revenue Service of the Kingdom of Spain pending further investigation.~

Miguel threw his phone across the room in frustration. The screen cracked when it hit the bare wall where the TV had been. Even with such a simple wish, he had been caught in the genie’s trap after all.

Eventually, they decided that their only recourse was to throw the snow globe back into the sea where they had found it. There would be no third wish; this genie was not to be trusted. They had a child now, and they had to protect him before another trap was sprung.

They waited until they saw all the lights of the little house wink out. They carefully carried it to the boat, wrapped up as thoroughly as possible, and they set out to sea. They prayed that the baby would not cry and wake the genie.

*

Belgorath awoke to a familiar darkness, a darkness that he had come to know intimately over the past several centuries, the darkness of the sea. And it was getting darker.

He cracked open the front door to get a look around. Above him, the light of the surface grew dimmer as he sank. He could just make out the faces of the two humans looking over the edge of their boat, staring down at him.

It was too late. Too late to burst out of the door and race screaming to the surface, too late to magic his way back to shore, too late to get his revenge for being cast into the sea. Again. At least this time it would be a bit warmer and lighter, and he’d be better-entertained.

Belgorath turned on his TV, but he saw only dancing white and black dots. Every channel was the same. A small blue box appeared in the center of the screen displaying two simple words, the mark of their treachery: “No signal”.

All he’d have now was a new generation of fish to stare at and countless hours raking sand. Belgorath seethed with renewed rage.