Valdin sat wearily on the kitchen bench dropping the heavy leather bound book on to the table as he did heaving a deep sigh. When the sigh and thump didn’t draw a reaction from his lovely wife, the Goddess Helena, who was measuring out tinctures from some concoction she’d created, he sighed again and said “Helena, this is so much harder than I thought.”
She briefly considered ignoring the infuriating God she called husband, but that wouldn’t stop his impending tirade on the difficulties of creating a magic book. She wiped her hands and set the towel down, turning as she did to acknowledge him.
“What makes it hard? What are you struggling with?”
“There’s so much information to meet everyone needs, I have pages and pages of plants, crystals, elements and I haven’t even started on the spells, hexes or moon magic. How will anyone find what they need in this thing, let alone carry it around because it’s already thick and cumbersome.” Valdin replied, a little on the whiny side as only a man can be.
Helena rolled her eyes and crossed her arms in front of her, leaning against the kitchen counter where she had been working. “My dear husband, no one asked you to make a record of every spell and type of magic. You were asked to make a book that responds to human needs.” She reminded him gently.
“I am trying but do you see how big it is already? It can’t be carried around or even put in a saddle bag. How can I fulfill the human’s magical needs if I don’t know what each one requires?”
Helena looked him directly in the eye and said, “Magic.” Then turned back to her tinctures.
No matter what Valdin said or did, she wouldn’t turn around or answer him and so he took his big book of spells and skulked out to the garden. Helena’s garden was full of magic and peace with a bench under a giant oak tree. As he sat down he thought ‘What did that woman mean… Magic? The entire book is full of magic.’
Leaning his head back and looking up at the blue sky peaking though the leaves of the oak tree, he let his mind wander and tried to imagine what he wanted the book to do.
The book needed to provide magical knowledge relevant to the reader, that would grow as the reader grew, that was small enough to be easily carried. He looked down at the growing pile of papers in the leather binder. “That’s going to be a challenge.” he said out-loud to himself, but heard an equally loud reply from the open kitchen window.
“Magic.” Helena said again.
He let the word float in the air and tingle in his mind. ‘Magic. The book was full of magic. What did she mean?’ he thought. There was something he was missing, ‘Why wouldn’t the woman just spell it out, tell him what to do?’
Helena’s voice popped into his mind “That is it. Spell, it, out.”
“What the heck does that mean, Woman?” he said loudly his frustration showing in his response.
“Valdin, this is neither my project nor my task. I adore you husband but sometimes you are a little dense.” There was a long pause as she let her words sink in, then continued, “Write a spell. A spell that will do all the things you’re asking the book to do and then cast on the book.” With those words her presence was gone from his mind and he felt her move away from the kitchen window.
‘Well, I’ve been told.’ He thought with a shake of his head, as he changed his focus. Maybe he was a little dense. Now he just needed to weave a spell over the book to shrink it and make it responsive to the magical being it was helping, and just maybe it was that simple.
First he needed to add the rest of the information, then he’d add some blank pages so that it could be updated with new spells and information. Grabbing the quill he’d stuck behind his ear and the ink he’d corked and stuck in his pocket he started writing.
Hours later Helena glanced out in the garden. Valdin was still huddled over the book, furiously scribbling words and absentmindedly dipping the quill in the inkwell. He didn’t know it but there were golden sparkles flying all around him. ‘Magic at it’s most potent.’ Helena thought. Dinner could wait another hour, or at least until he looked up.
A few hours later she ended up bring him dinner in the garden and at dark she helped him carry in the loose pages and leather binding. She left him sitting at the table with a lamp as she kissed his forehead and went to bed. She shook her head thinking ‘The man’s a little obsessive.’
Valdin finally pushed back from the table sometime after midnight. It was done, all of it written down. Every magic spell, potion, fact, tidbit of information…everything he could think of to put in a book of magic was there, plus he had added the requested blank pages throughout. Now, all he needed to do was enchant the thing so that it wasn’t so massive.
It was late but his body was humming with the magic, so he drew himself a bath, silently thanking his wife for the big pot of hot water she’d left simmering on the stove. He added some salt, lavender and a little lemongrass, then poured it into the tub in the room just off the side of the kitchen. Lowering himself into the water, he rested his head against the back and closed his eyes. In just a few minutes in he felt himself relax and although the magic still hummed through his blood, it was slowing down.
He thought about the book and how it would be used, providing knowledge and hopefully peace for his favorite realm, Zandor. Closing his eyes and sinking into the water a little deeper a vision so strong he couldn’t ignore it hit him and he was lost briefly in the storm of information. When it past, he got out of the tub and picked up one of the blank pages writing what would become a prophecy.
The Seven
The balance of magic will be tipped and the realms of the universe, in their need for balance, will seek out and build seven staffs to fight in the ultimate battle, which will begin when they are completed. From other realms they will come, responding to the call deep within their blood.
Zandor will be the battleground.
For every staff, two will answer and together build a magical staff. Each staff will be different. Each staff will reflect the qualities of the creators, deriving power from the quest undertaken to complete it. The creators will be a pair in every way, or one will choose to leave, to not wield the staff in the final battle. The staff with only one will be weakened. Each staff needs the bearer and the protector. If all seven of the visitors choose to go home, the land may be lost. If the battle is not won the evil of Piru will reign over Zandor and spread to the other realms of the universe, destroying good at every turn and installing evil.
Good and evil will always be at war.
Magic provides the balance.
Without balance, all will be lost.
The magic of the staff will flow through both, although differently. The bearer’s job is to utilize their own gifts to pull together the elements needed to facilitate the staff’s magic, to stay and wield the magic in a battle. The protector’s job is to lead and protect both the staff and the bearer and to be prepared to wield the staff should the bearer choose to leave or die.
Some will choose to leave,
Some may die,
All may be lost,
All may be saved.
Magic cannot exist without balance.
The next morning Valdin went to work assembling the book. First he stacked all the pages neatly together in order and groups of 10 pages, folded in half. He placed a line of stitches down the middle, then arranged all the chapters. He laid them in the binding and glued the spine. Pulling the leather binding as tight as he could over the pages, he attached some thin aspen bark on the inside of the leather with more glue. He then handed it to Helena so she could ink in the cover with the words ‘Book of Strength’ because her hand writing was beautiful.
He stepped outside and was once again drawn to the Oak tree in the garden. Once seated there he went to work on a spell to make the book safe from prying eyes, but accessible to the magic wielder and compact to carry.
By my will…
Let the pages be seen,
by those who have the mean,
and you will find just what you need.
Protect the magic,
Provide the spell,
Shrink the size,
Keep it well
Earth, and Air Fire and Sea,
By the Heavens above
So Mote It Be
After he finished inscribing the spell in the leather of the book, Valdin looked at Helena, kissed her on the forehead and waved his hand over the tome. With a shimmer of gold things started to move and coalesce and in a few moments a beautifully bound, flexible leather book, just the right size to put in a satchel was left sitting on the bench. Helena picked it up, dusted off the magic residue and handed it back to him, saying. “Who are you going to give it to?”
Valdin thought for a moment, then said “The current Celft at the Great Oak in Zandor. From there it will get where it needs to go.”
Book of Strength
