A Journey Never Begun Pt. 09

"I lifted the first bucket and told Ardweena, "This is dry pulp from the pine trees. When mixed with fine linen threads and pure water will create the paper for my grimoire.'

"I lifted the second bucket and said, 'This is refined sap of the pine trees. It is very sticky and will be used to glue the wooden pieces of the cover together and glue the skin over the wood to make the cover. The gift of your sister Agweena will be used to craft runes that will be embedded in the grimoire to help channel its power. And the sky metal will be used to make the hinges and the corner pieces to protect the edges.

"Ardweena's face grew serious as she said, 'Thank you for the explanation, sir wizard.' At the end of her words I heard echoes of those words and out of the corner of my eye I saw her sisters and Sparkle walking toward me. The three who were walking stopped at the cardinal points surrounding me, with Ardweena as the fourth point. Their voices then continued in unison, 'All too often we are not taken seriously because we are so pretty. You have always treated us with respect and dignity. This kindness will not be forgotten. Please call on us in your hour of need and we will be there to help.'

"With that, Ardweena grew and like her sisters, held my head and kissed my forehead. This time I felt the swelling of the mana, but this time, when her lips touched my forehead it was like being struck by lightning. I was rooted to the spot and every muscle in my body tensed and held. When I could move again, it was dark and the 4 nymphs were gone.

"Bone weary, I dragged myself back to the house I was calling home and fell into a deep sleep on the floor without even spreading out my bedroll.

"The next morning, the events of the day before seemed like a dream, until I saw the buckets. I looked into my backpack and saw the other gifts, along with the other wood pieces and the piece of dragon skin.

"It was all I could do to force myself to eat breakfast I wanted to get started so badly. I knew however, that I had to do this correctly.

"I went to the shop and found a hank of horse tail hair. I used that to fashion a brush to spread the glue. When that was complete I dragged a table from one of the other houses and scrubbed it clean until it almost shone in the sunlight. I knew I was ready. I brought out the pieces of wood and the bucket of glue.

"I laid the pieces out in the order I was going to put them together. I wanted the oak in the center for strength. The walnut would be on the outside for its beauty. I would place the aspen on the inside for its purity. But when I looked at my handiwork, somehow I had placed the walnut so that it would be laminated on the inside and the aspen was in the center with the oak on the outer side.

"That would never do. I picked up the pieces and rearranged them, only to discover that they were back the same way again. I got the hint. Walnut, aspen and oak was to be the order.

"I brought the bucket of glue over and spread a thin layer on the first two layers and pressed them together. Then I spread another layer on the other side of the aspen and a layer on the oak. When I was done, I put a smooth board on the top and piled some rocks to let the glue dry.

"While the glue continued to dry, I went into the forge and fired up the fire pit with some more of the black rock. I chipped some small pieces off the chunk of sky metal and proceeded to make two hinges.

"Checking on the wooden pieces I found them bound together so well, they looked like a single piece of wood rather than 3 pieces glued together.

"I took the dragon skin and stretched it out on the table. Without measuring, I pulled my dagger and cut the pieces needed to make a cover for the grimoire. To this day I don't know how I did it, it was like something inside controlled me and I just watched.

"I glued the outer covers on and stretched the skin, then glued the inner pieces in place. Again I covered them with the board and rocks to press it down. Satisfied I turned back to the forge to create the corner pieces, but by this time it was dark and so I went to get some sleep. When I got up in the morning, I had to check out how the skins had fared. It was amazing. It was almost as if the wood had grown a skin. I could not find a seam anywhere.

"Shaking my head, I walked back to the forge. I added some detailing on the hinges while the forge heated up. A few hours' worth of work and the corner protectors were complete.

"I had some time left in the days so I took the hinges and corner protectors and working with the engraving tools I found in the second of the collapsed houses. I carefully inlaid them with the gold, silver and copper wire. I used the wire to create the runes I wanted to inlay onto the covers.

"When I looked up another whole day had come and gone. I went back to the house and ate a sparse meal of jerky and bread before falling into a deep sleep once again.

"The next morning when I woke up, the first question I asked myself was what had crawled into the house and died? It turned out, it was me. So after a quick snack of jerky and bread I headed for the stream to clean up. I called out for Sparkle but got no answer, so I lowered myself into the cold water and scrubbed myself with some sand. On the way back to the house, I picked some sweet grasses that smelled like lemons and some late blooming wildflowers. Bundling the plants into a pad I wiped myself down to make sure I was not so offensive, even to myself. Being alone, it is too easy to forget and begin to smell like the worst things imaginable.

"That day I fitted the corner protectors and the hinges and hardware to hold the pages in and the covers on. By then, it was starting to look like a grimoire. But another day was gone and I went to lie down.

"That night I had a horrible dream.

"I was watching as a group of frost wizards and barbarians dressed in furs led a small boy up a winding path. It was snowing and cold and they walked for a long time until they reached the top of the mountain. The wind was howling and snow was falling, but the top had no snow. The top of the mountain was hollow and fell away into a crater. The heat rising from deep in the mountain drove the snow away.

"The frost wizards began chanting and one at a time they lay their hand on the boy and he began to squirm. The biggest of the barbarians held his arms above his head and his squirms became thrashing and his thrashings became flailing, but it was to no avail. The barbarian held him unmoving and without flinching when the boy's legs rained kicks upon him and anyone nearby.

"Finally, the last of the wizards laid his hands upon the boy and the chanting stopped. The wizard nodded to the barbarian. The boy finally screamed as the barbarian spun several times before hurling the boy far out towards the center of the crater like the strong men at the fairs hurling rocks to see who could throw the farthest.

"The screaming of the boy continued as he fell until at last he landed on a rivulet of molten rock.

"Incredibly, the boy did not die from the fall or the red hot rock under his body. He stood up unbelieving of what was happening.

"Suddenly his feet began to sink into the molten rock. He thrashed which speeding up his sinking. It was like watching someone sink into quicksand. He sank slowly into the rock until only his hand was above the surface. At last too that disappeared.

"The wizards and the barbarians saw none of this. As soon as the boy stopped screaming, they turned and walked back down the path. Sure that their sacrifice would appease the angry spirits that made the ice rumble and crack under their homes they returned to them.

"I woke in the morning and there was frost on the ground. Seeing that, I thought I knew where the dream came from. I grabbed a quick breakfast and headed out to the workshop. The forge had kept the room warm and the grimoire had taken no damage from the frost.

"I went down to the stream and offered greetings to Sparkle and asked if I could get a bucket of pure water to make the paper for my grimoire. Hearing no reply I dipped the bucket in and it came back pure and clean. I said my thanks to the lady for hearing my request and granting it.

"I mixed the pulp from the pines and added linen threads from cloths I retrieved from the other cabins. I had previously made a comb using the gold, silver and copper wires and I combed the pulp to align the fibers. When I was ready, I carefully poured the pulp out onto the screen I had previously prepared. I let the pulp drip for a while to remove some of the water before I sifted the white powder from the sea nymphs onto the top. I had previously sifted some onto the bottom of the screen.

"I got the wooden press and squeezed as much of the water out of the pulp as possible. It was now starting to attain the consistency of soggy paper.

"At that point, I began to push mana into the wet mess and to introduce the cantrips and charms that I was being fed by the memories of my master's grimoire. When I was done squeezing the rough paper, I put a clean cloth over it and flipped it over quickly so it fell out flat on the work table. I added some more of the white powder and increased the spells I was weaving into it. At last, it was done and I just had to wait for it to dry.

"I looked out and saw that it was nearly dark again. The days were flying by. That night I set a fire in the fireplace and cooked up a stew. I needed something warm and it felt like I would need a fire to stay warm that night.

"In the morning, I rushed over to see the results of my hard work the day before. On the table was a single sheet of paper. It was perfectly flat and unblemished. My hands were shaking as I reached out to touch it and flip it over. The other side was perfect as well. Almost in a trance, I pulled my dagger and cut the holes needed to fit the sheet into the grimoire. Without measuring, the holes were perfect and the single sheet fitted exactly right.

"The knowledge my master's grimoire imparted to me told me what I had to do next. Trembling, I raised the dagger to my left hand. I began to cut. Single strokes were cut from the tip of each finger to the center of my palm and then to the wrist. As I started to cut, my hands stopped shaking and the cuts were straight and clean. The cuts were just deep enough to bleed freely but not deep enough to damage my hand.

"As I was cutting, I felt no pain and there was no blood. At last, the pattern was complete. I had previously placed the runes I wove or hammered or carved or bent into existence on the corners of the grimoire and the largest one, made from sky metal, gold, silver and copper, was placed in the center.

"As I voiced the last spell in the tongue of the ancients, my hand began to bleed and I slammed it down on top of the grimoire. I felt a torrent of mana being pulled roughly out of me as the grimoire began to feed. When at last it was sated and released me, I passed out. Whether I passed out from lack of blood or mana or both I don't know. All I know is that it was morning when I came around. Thinking of nothing else I staggered and crawled back to the house and eat and drank for what seemed like hours. When I could finally stop, I lay down and slept again.

"It was morning again when I woke up, but was it the next day or three days or more, I never knew. All I knew was that my hand was healed, leaving just the faintest spider traces of the cuts I had made.

"I ate again and went back to the workshop. When I got there, my grimoire was not where I had left it. It had moved closer to the fire as if it had gotten cold.

"When I opened it, there was some reluctance but it finally opened. Inside were dozens of pages all filled with every spell, cantrip, charm and piece of herbal lore I had ever learned. The script was definitely mine, but it was cleaner and clearer than I normally write. And there was a blank page at the back. And that is one of the mysteries of the grimoire. There is no way to add pages to it, but when I need a page there is always a page there for me to write on. And sometimes when I go to write something I find that it is already there.

"I stood there for a moment and then said, 'It is time to go home.' I felt my had being pushed out and the cover closed and the lock snapped shut. Apparently my grimoire agreed.

"It took the better part of the morning to pack and when I had everything I needed and had put out the fire in the forge and the fireplace in the house. I had one last thing to do before I left.

"I walked over to the places as close to where I remembered that I had spoken to the three sisters. I made my farewells and gave thanks to them for all of their help. I stopped by the stream and made my farewells to Sparkle. As I turned to the path out of the mountains the ground shook briefly and I heard Sparkle's laughter and what sounded like her voice calling out, 'It is not goodbye silly boy, I'm not done with you yet.'

"Three months later, in the middle of a raging blizzard I stumbled into my Master's house. Expecting a warm welcome or a hello or something, he just looked up from the table and said, 'Shut the door. Were you raised in a barn? It's cold out there.' And he went back to tinkering with something on the table.

"I was home."

So ends the ninth part of A Journey Never Begun.