There was a light shining from beneath the sand. I spied it while walking along the seashore late on a moonless night, chilly surf chuckling around my bare toes. Just a steady glow ringing a patch of emptiness. I guess I already knew what it was when I started digging there, because this had happened a few times now. Not the sand part or the buried part, but the light. I wondered what object would contain it this time, which direction it would seek to send me.

Cold, wet sand scraped against my fingertips and packed beneath my nails as I shoveled mounds aside. Soon my fingers struck a metal handle and, tugging it, I dragged up a lantern caked in muck. When I washed it off in the nearby sea, it turned out to be new and red as blood.

The lantern was full of stardust. Bright, glittering shards, fine as powder, rolled around within the glass globe as I set it upon the sand. The light of ancient stars cast outward from the hearts of these, shining across the waves as far as the horizon and reflecting bright as day off nearby dunes. But its most intense light shot off in one direction. A beam, pointing north and just slightly west, angling away from the sea, bending maybe a little more than the last one had. I consulted the time and the constellations above to verify. Then I shrugged. Now I knew the course, I would get around to following the way marker’s direction eventually.

Gaze following the beam, I wondered where these markers were meant to lead. Yet, somehow, I felt no inclination to follow. Disquiet settled over me. Nothing like sensing danger and everything like being lost.

Who kept leaving these behind?

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Bring the Wanderer Home

The Hopeful Wanderer

Wander a world driven from mundane to magical by a secret hidden at its heart.

A slow apocalypse has corroded a distant planet, with the uncanny living in uneasy commune alongside those remaining. On a forgotten quest from the stars, the Wanderer roams among them, through crumbling societies and vibrant wildernesses, navigating a murky path toward an incredible past.

While helping and receiving help-or hindrance-from strange denizens of unusual destinations, the Wanderer must finish righting a wrong that threatens to extinguish the universe itself. Should memory of the responsibility return at all.

Featuring

100 Hopeful Wanderer tales
20 new short stories
10-episode revelatory ending
100% revised and expanded

A far-future science fantasy with sub-tones of soft-apocalypse and climate change, this hopeful adventure combines exploration, eeriness, and wonder across 100 short tales.

Join readers who loved the web series and journey alongside them in discovering the Wanderer’s wondrous past and hopeful mission to save the stars.