Hello, dear readers, Horse here. There is some topic I want to discuss with you. As some of you may have noticed, I received my first review. As much as I'm proud to get a five star review, I don't feel I deserved it, since aisenstein-kun, seemingly, is not my reader. If you were to read his review, you could find him complaining about synopsis. I'm grateful for hi6s advice. I really am. But let me make a point here. I don't want to describe my fiction, since I always wanted you, my readers, to describe it in my place. I believe reader's point of view to be more adequate and objective, so I'll let you be my judges. Feel free to leave a review when you feel like it. Good or bad, I'll accept everything.

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"The traveler's notes" by Lasley Guinness. Second edition. Published in 9629.

Chapter 1 "Introduction"

Page 10

During the first assembly of all sentient beings representatives decided, that rulers of each country shall get together at least once in twenty five periods to discuss various topics, such as war, pease, trade, religion, development and so on. The end of the assembly signatured the beginning of new epoch, the first period of new era has started. To consolidate new bonds each race shared something precious with others. Beastmen shared breathing techniques, Elves gave seeds of their Sacred tree, Dwarves shared blacksmithing techniques. Human wanted to share farming methods, but neither elves, nor beastmen were interested, so they ended up giving away methods of warfare and blueprints for war tools. Much water has flown under the bridge since that time, but just as then, rulers of all countries keep gathering four times a century.

An old man walked through the wood slowly, while whistling a cheerful melody. The trail he took was familiar to him to some extent, but he started to forget the right road already. It's been forty periods since he visited the grave of his old master last time. He never was attached to the man all that much in the first place. Yet he picked flowers along his path, the elf deserve at least that. As he reached the clearing, he saw a cracked stone tomb and a cloaked figure near it. He made his way to the tomb, put down the flowers and stood beside a figure. Neither made a sound.

"So you finally came, brother," he said barely audible, with the corner of his mouth.

"Uhuh" he didn't move neither his mouth, nor his face at all.

"If I remember correctly, last time we saw each other on this very same please, four decades ago. I don't seem to remember, why were we arguing that time?"

"If I remember correctly, you called me a musclehead and I broke your nose."

"Oh, and you called me a crackbrain and I shortened one of your canines. Now I remember."

"Sounds like you want to continue our pleasant talk somewhere else, huh? Didn't you damaged the tomb last time. No dead deserve such a treatment."

"You learned to respect our master? Who would have guessed. The man needed to die to earn some credit. He might be turning in his grave right now. Thanks for invitation, though, but I didn't call you for fighting."

"You didn't call me at all. If you were to call me, I wouldn't have come."

"True, hehehe."

"Now, lets get done with it. Tell me what you want so that I could refuse and return to my training," after hearing his brother's creepy laugh he started to lose patience. He knew this laugh all too well.

"Not so fast brother. Since you took bother to cross such a distance, it's my duty to treat you to a meal. Twenty periods ago a wonderful cook settled in our village. You should taste her barbecue. I'll even bring my best bottle of akebian red. What do you think?"

"Hmm. Interesting. It's been awhile since someone cooked for me." there was a glitter in his eyes, "Is she that good?"

"I have been eating her food at least once a day for almost two periods, brother. If I remember correctly, your cooking skills were nonexistent. It brings me sorrow to think you never tried a real food."

"Well, if you insist, I could stay for a day. If I were to find a family, ready to take me in, that is. There is no way I could stand your company for both day and night."

"Oh, let me arrenge things for you. I'm an elder of this villagte after all."

"You?! An elder?! Ahahaha. So you rule our home village now?"

"I prefer a term "supervise", brother, not "rule". The actual ruler is Bertram."

"Berboy? Hmmm. Good choice. Time runs so fast," he looked at the skies with yearning, "It's been fifteen years since he came to the Tree to climb his first branch. If he only had more tenacity, I could train him,but.....seems like first branch became his last."

"Tenacity? I heard none of your students stayed a week with you," he met questioning look of his brother, "Sometimes rumors fly faster and further then wind." he winked. "But you're right, youngsters lack tenacity these days. I was lucky to find a hardworking pupil. Such talents are scarce in large villages, let alone remote islands."

"You have no idea! Isn't that a first time we agreed on something since...a century? You know what, I'll take your offer. Bring your akebian red and.....no, bring two bottles, lets make it like a men."

"The last house to the north then, at ten. Make sure your stomach is empty when you come."

With no further chatter, one of the men left, while whistling a melody. The other continued to stay in silence. A wry smile crawled on his face. "The stage is set," he thought.

Akillah's POV

The last two years were rather hectic. I've become quiet entangled in this circle of learning, so, on Shanahan's suggestion, I started to learn tailoring and cooking from mother. It's been awhile, since I had this feeling, like Shanahan's teachings got lacking. I've finished most of elder Shanahan's education courses, but for some reason he refuses to pick up more. First, I thought he's waiting for my "feather training" to bring results, but he never asked, if I'm still practising with feathers at all, which I do. Neither did he speak of magic since our first lesson. It's almost like he is teaching and not teaching me at the same time.

When I thought mother was getting late, I heard her climbing the ladder.

"Mom, look at what I made!" I jumped from my seet to show her a leather ribbon I made. It's my first attempt at actually making something with my arms. Mother was delighted when I asked her to teach me. It seems like our tribe's specialty was leathery since a long time. While having a problem with injuries, our craftsmen developed new techniques and patterns for tailoring, that enable better protection and excluded factory accidents. Making an armor sounded kind of cool so I took her teachings seriously. For past two turns I've been doing nothing but taking notes and drawing patterns in a volume father bought me. I could call it notebook if it didn't weight ten pounds.

While entering the house she left the door opened. Elder Shanahan went in after her.

He went to the chair across to me and sat down, while staring at me intently. Somehow he were more weird than ever.

"You may go for for thirty minutes, elder. Everything shall be ready by then." mom said. Elder Shanahan stood up, and showed me to follow with a nod of his head. I caught up with him twenty meters from the house.

"Listen carefully, child. Something came up. If things go well, today is our last lesson."

This statement came like a snow in summer. What's wrong with him, all of a sudden?

"What do you mean? Are you leaving somewhere?"

"No. But don't think about that too much. You'll know when time comes." It wasn't the first time for him to speak with riddles, so I just brushed it off. It was okay to ignore him if he says so, speaking to him becomes unbearable otherwise.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"So, what's the topic today?"

"Magic," he said nonchalantly.

"Magic?! You choose to teach me magic during our, as you just told, last lesson?" He has got to be kidding me.

"Not teach, Akillah. I'm just going to answer your questions. No riddles. No tricks. Only answers." he talked as if he was in haste.

"But why now?"

"You see, words have power behind them. Words can harm us more then blades, or bless us more then we'll ever deserve. The same power is characteristic for questions, of course. Sometimes unanswered question does as much harm, as unsaid word," he said. So much for a "no riddle" talk. "Now ask, Akillah," he stopped near a trunk and sat down on it, gesturing me to join him, while I thought, what to ask.

"You told me before that I shall learn to ask right questions, or something? What are important questions?"

"Well, I think the most important ones are those, that can't be answered correctly. You can ask those questions again and again, but each time the answer will be different. The second question I ever asked you was one of those."

I started to remember the day we met at our house. One and half periods went and gone since then.

"You asked, who am I?"

"Yes! I'm glad you remember. Who are you. Simple as that. You said then, that you're a girl," he gave me a wink. "A girl. Can one word describe everything you are? Moreover, can a billion words do just that? I don't think so. What you are can be understood only by your own soul, and soul doesn't have a language, Akillah." He gave a short sight before continuing. "The important thing is not answering that question, but asking it. Yesterday you were not the same person that you are today, and not the person you're going to be tomorrow. You are changing, but the question is always gonna be just as important. Who. Are. You. You need to seek an answer, Akilah, to understand yourself, to understand what you want to be. Let me reveal first secret to you for today, child," he started to dig into the ground with his hands, "if you know who you are, then you'll have a guess who are you going to become tomorrow". I moved further to avoid earth he throw about.

"Could you make another example, elder?" I was far from understanding what he means.

"What time is it?" he asked. My eyes darted to the skies by habit, but he continued without waiting for my response. "I told you before, that time is the most precious resource. Just like that, any time you ask this question, the answer is going to be different. Our whole life is a race against time. There is the saying," he dug a rather deep hole by now and was wiping his hands, "you can't cross the river in one place twice. Just like you, the river is changing. Anything around us does, be it a girl, a river or a rock. That brings us to the very first question I ever asked you, Akillah. I'm sure you can tell what exactly I said."

"Hmm. You asked me to look at the window and tell you what I see?"

"Uhuh. Another important question. What do you see? Can you guess what comes next?"

"You're going to say, that any second we see something different from before?"

"Yes, that's right. But that's only the half of an answer. The other half is, do you know what exactly you see? Another secret for you, Akillah. Not everything in your view can be described with words. Sometimes things we see can be comprehended only by our soul."

"You mentioned then, during our first talk, that Ancients saw what can't be seen with eyes, and hear what can't be heard with ears. Is that what you mean?"

"Yes. I knew you're a wonderful listener," he looked pleased. "What's your next question going to be?"

I found it rather hard to keep up with him. My head didn't hurt from all this blabbering just because I got used to this kind of talks over last eighteen turns. I also came up with method to divide the whole talk into parts.

"A quick summary....you're saying, that anything constantly changes, and has much more to it then I can tell, right?" he nodded vigorously. "You told me once that rocks have a wish. Do they wish to change?"

"Exactly! Hehehe," I got so used to this laugh that a day without it felt strange, "the rock, the river, the universe, everything wants to change. Let me tell you this, Akilllah. Our world, and any other world in the universe, obey the same laws. Apple falls downwards because of gravitation - is the most basic example of the laws of universe. Just like that, there is the law of constant changing. Universe is not static. It moves, develops, becomes more complex. We can't see those changes because our lives are but a blink, a sparkle. In fact, there is much more in common between something so grand as universe, and something so small as a rock. Isn't our planet just a pebble, a grain of sand, compared to the universal vastness? What I'm trying to say is this," his eyes darted to me, "there is a life in anything, but the amount of life in a rock is so small, that you can't see it with your eyes," he fetched a seed from his pocket and dropped it into a hole, then buried it. "I owe you something, child," he pause, "...a demonstration. This time, the real one."

He put his hand on the ground and said one word. "Grow."

What happened next is not easy to explain. In years to come, I remembered this moment many times. The stem, that slowly crawled from earth is just a minor part of a wonder. The biggest part of a mystery was elder Shanahan's voice. I heard his voice for hundreds of thousands of times, but this one time was different. After a lot of thinking, and years after, I finally came with en explanation, that could be putten into words. There was a joy of life in his voice, that could only be seen in eyes of a baby. There was a generosity in that notes, that you see when poor share their last. In that single word was hope, that any single one of us feel, when we wait for another day to come. For the first time I really felt magic.

"There are two aspects of magic that I used, child. First, you need to understand, what a seed exactly is. You need to feel every fiber of its existence. Not with words, but with your soul. Second, you need a willpower to make it grow, to make it bend to your will."

"You......you break a law of universe with willpower?" I was astonished.

"No. Of course not. The seed wanted to change all along. Everything wants to change, to grow...to develop. I'm not breaking the law. I'm supporting it. I nurture it. The further your manipulation gets from natural state of things, the more willpower you'll need to finish the change. To tell you the truth, I never explained you the actual structure of magic, but with this demonstration you should have enough insights, in case you choose to walk the path of a magician. Now come, child. We have a special guest today I would like you to meet..."

"But how did you turn an apple into a stone? And who do I have to meet?" Impatience was taking the best of me.

"Hah, another pointless question. Better than thinking how did I do this, think what is in common between an apple and a rock. What comes from earth, returns to it. Let me give you a pointer," he stood up from a trunk, "with enough willpower, you could bend en element. Now come. You shell meat my brother Korhall. He's a Branch holder, like Bertram supposed to be. I bet he's about to make a visit."

I followed the elder while musing about todays talk and stuff. I also thought, what kind of man Shanahan's teacher was. I bet this brother of his knows, Korhal was it? Shanahan and Korhal. I felt something clicking into my head. Huh? Shanahan. Korhal. Han and Hal?