The Cartographer's New Home

The Cartographer's New Home by Monica Shah (a Short Story Contest submission)

Maliel had spent centuries crafting the world with a cartographer's hunger. 
He poured gold beneath one nation's soil, cool rivers through its valleys, clear skies above its honeyed fields. This one, he thought, humming as he worked. Mine. The others he salted with drought and debt.

God's voice came soft: "Go." Maliel landed in cracked red dirt, barren beneath a merciless sun. He recognized the foul air, the poisoned wells… and wept.