“You don’t need to know. You are the princess of the Storyless Kingdom, and it’s natural that the kingdom has no stories for you. As a matter of fact, no one outside the palace tells their children any stories either. But my parents were different. They were from He’ershingenmosiken, and so they did tell me some stories.”
“My father told me that long ago, the Storyless Kingdom had stories, too.”
“That’s true…. Princess, do you know that the kingdom is surrounded by the sea? The palace is at the center of the kingdom. No matter which direction you pick, you’ll end up eventually at the shore. The Storyless Kingdom is a big island.”
“Of course. I knew that.”
“In the past, the sea around the kingdom wasn’t called the Glutton’s Sea. Back then, there were no glutton fish, and ships plied the waters freely. Every day, countless ships passed between the Storyless Kingdom and He’ershingenmosiken—well, back then, this was called the Storyful Kingdom, and life was very different.”
“Oh?”
“Life was full of stories, and filled with changes and surprises. There were several big bustling cities in the kingdom, and the palace wasn’t surrounded by forests and fields, but by a flourishing capital. Everywhere in the cities you could find the valuable goods and the singular tools and utensils of He’ershingenmosiken. And the goods of the Storyless Kingdom—oh, I mean the Storyful Kingdom—flowed to He’ershingenmosiken over the sea without cease. People’s lives were unpredictable, like riding a fast horse through the mountains: One moment you’d be atop a peak, and the next moment you’d have fallen into a ravine. There was opportunity and danger: A poor person could become rich overnight, and a wealthy person could also lose everything in a moment. Upon awakening, no one knew what was going to happen that day, or who they were going to meet. Life was stimulating and astonishing.
“But one day, a merchant ship from He’ershingenmosiken brought a stock of rare small fish in cast-iron barrels. The fish was only about as long as a finger, black in color, and looked perfectly ordinary. The merchant performed for the public in the markets: He stuck a sword into the iron barrel, and after an ear-piercing series of grinding noises, pulled the sword out to show that it had been bitten into a saw. The fish were called glutton fish, a freshwater species found in dark pools deep in the caves of He’ershingenmosiken.
“The glutton fish sold very well in the kingdom. Although the fish’s teeth were tiny, they were as hard as diamonds and could be used as drill heads. Their fins were also very sharp, and could be made into arrowheads or small knives. Thus, more and more glutton fish were shipped from He’ershingenmosiken to this kingdom. Once, a typhoon caused one of these transport ships to capsize near the coast, and more than twenty barrels of glutton fish were lost at sea.
“It turned out that the glutton fish thrived in the ocean, and grew to be as long as a man, far larger than their freshwater form. Also, they bred quickly, and their population exploded. They began to eat everything that floated on the surface. Ships and boats that weren’t dragged onto the shore in time were chewed into pieces. When glutton fish surrounded a ship, they chewed huge holes through the bottom. But the ship didn’t even have time to sink before it was chewed into nothing, as though it had melted. The schools of glutton fish swam around the kingdom and quickly formed a barrier in the sea.
“And so the glutton fish laid siege to the Storyful Kingdom, and the shore became a land of death. There were no more ships and sails, and the kingdom was sealed off, with all connections to He’ershingenmosiken and the larger world cut off. It reverted to a self-sufficient agrarian land. The bustling cities disappeared and turned into small towns and ranches. Life became calm and dull, with no more changes, no more stimulation and surprises. Yesterday was like today, and today is like tomorrow. The people gradually grew used to this and stopped yearning for a different life. Their memories of the past, like the exotic goods from He’ershingenmosiken, grew fewer with each passing day. People even deliberately tried to forget the past, and also the present. All in all, they no longer wanted stories, so they patterned their life into a storyless one. And so the Storyful Kingdom became the Storyless Kingdom.”
Princess Dewdrop was mesmerized by the story. Only long after Long-Sail had stopped did she ask, “Are there still glutton fish everywhere in the sea?”
“No. They live only around the coast of the Storyless Kingdom. Those with good eyes can sometimes see distant seabirds floating on the surface of the ocean hunting for food. There are no glutton fish there. The ocean is immense and boundless.”
“So, there are other places in the world in addition to the Storyless Kingdom and He’ershingenmosiken?”
“Princess, do you really think the world consists of only these two places?”
