Chapter 5 - - I read a book and learn what the cauldron is for (1/2)

It was not just any book, it was a diary, a notebook and had descriptions of various things with small painted illustrations. The author had unique penmanship, not cursive nor simple, a sort of mix of the two and something unlike both. It was a miracle that he could understand the words at all, though formed as they were into sentences, the writing itself did not make clear sense.

He had picked up the book randomly, but it seemed to him that the author had not begun to write in this book first. He wondered if that particular book was part of the collection in the chest and if it was, did that mean that the author was the previous owner of his body?

Scanning through the pages, he noticed that most of the notes and illustrations were of various plants, none of which he had ever heard of. This, perhaps, was not too unusual considering his knowledge of plants did not stem much beyond trees and the types of wood they produced. But he was definitely certain that he had never heard of five-petalled ghostwort or silvertongue nightshade.

The first produced tiny flowers that had an intoxicating scent. It's leaves, when crushed, could nullify that same scent, should it get on a person's skin and the large root had nutritional value, but were tough and tasted as floral as the flowers scent if over boiled.

The latter was poisonous if handled unwisely. It's stems and roots were deadly upon consumption. It's silver leaves also, if eaten in too high a dose, otherwise they could produce a slight immunity over time. However the side effect and the reason that they were valued despite their nature was that eating silver leaves would make the consumer talk nonstop for a while and without falsehood.

Leon put the book down and concentrated on moving the comb through his damp hair. He wondered why the author had such an interest in plants. It was clearly not all he wrote about, after all there was a rather poetic passage before those descriptions about a particular morning, when the low mists swirled about the tree trunks and seemed to hang loose like oversized cloaks draped over saplings and bushes. The sun had seemed like a bright moon held in the hazy sky rather than its usually fiery self.

Taking himself and the blanket still wrapped about him into the small hut, he opened up the other books, a couple of which were empty of all words and found the one he believed was the first of the books to have been written.

The words used seemed simple and youthful and the brushwork inexperienced, but the author spoke with much joy about how he had been chosen to attend the learning academy and how his grandfather had gifted him with a number of blank pages books, that the old man had crafted by hand. It was his craft, to make these books to be filled with the words of scholars, but he wished more for his only grandchild. The man had come late in life to the skills of reading and writing, but had diligently taught the author what he knew and the child had been receptive and eager to learn. The grandfather had sent him to the nearby town where recruiting had begun for the academy with a small purse of coins to apply and the boy had been successful.

He later wrote about his journey to the school which was located upon a mountainous hill coated in a thick forest. How he shared a large hut with many other boys, most aged 16 or 17, though a few were a little older, but they were all new to the school and would study together. Then the boys were tested, things like fighting skills, aptitude for calligraphy, standard of knowledge for things like wildlife and magic..

Leon put the book down. Magic?

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