Pastle: The World of Light

Chapter 4: The Book

History of Luecen: Events leading to the Battle of Hora and Its aftermath. (Revised Edition, XX87) by Feriwinkle Van Eohen. The book was bound by hard leather and at the back, in small letters 'Not for Sale for the Masses' was etched. Puno had this one-of-a-kind book here and had said to me it was common knowledge to know about the world. Either he was dumb or too smart. I had no idea.

I skimmed through the pages. The book was massive and had depictions of various events, places, and peoples of the world. I studied everything briefly and jumped around to the index page to pick my next topic. I got to know this world was called Leucen, which in the ancient language literally meant light. The world had been seemingly whole until the Battle of Hora, which was the name of the biggest kingdom located in the Nuksar region famously called the Horizons. Hora had been the first one to plunge into the darkness when the witches revolted against mankind, they were called the darkseers. Vivandre the Wolven Witch was the one leading the assaults. She and the darkseers killed everyone in the kingdom and extinguished the bloodline of the Fubriquian Sages who were able to control light and travel to the dream world to bring forth the light of the stars. Vivandre's motivations were not mentioned as to why she had attacked, there were many theories given and the author firmly believed this one:

Vivandre the Wolven witch or the Wolven bitch lusted after the power that sages held to traverse the dream world and guide the world of light to eternal astral ubiquity. Her motivations merely lied in the pretense that she had no desire to submit herself before the covenant of witches after her group of mages and witches were discovered fiddling with the astral arts that were to be not used as they could bring forth the destruction of the world by releasing the astral beasts from the deep chasms of the astral void that lay sealed in the dream world. It was the job of sages to guard it, which helped them guide some of the power of stars to Leucen, Illuminating it.

It rambled on about her peers, her role in the witch society, and her lust for power. While reading the book, I got the idea it was more akin to speculation of the history of Leucen rather than the true history of Leucen. The author was biased and often rambled his ideas in the mix totally muddling it with his opinions.

The book had a depiction of the world and its places before the battle but I wasn't interested in it and skipped to the pages which told me about the places after the battle. The world was initially whole and traveling to the other places took time but ultimately you got there. They were the Yungarn region of the plateau cliffs, Nuskar region of the plains ( Hora was here), Chevvele region of the mountains, Fushia region of the clouds, Krevar region of the periphery (I guess he meant the coasts), and Lucila region of the seas.

Now every region was shattered by the reckoning, this is what the author named the event when all light was stolen and the monsters, beasts, and vile creatures already residing in Leucen awakened and got more aggravated due to the dark. Nuskar also called the Horizon was separated from the places, and the author left a note that to reach this broken and dead place one had to find the forest of lights to portal there. Yungarn was now referred to as simply cliffside and had risen up separating itself away from Chevvele (Ravines) and Crevices, which formed due to the reckoning. Most of the survivors escaped to Cliffside and later built the town of Junction, called the crossroads of the world. Downhill it went into the beaches that connected to the Great Lucent Sea which now stormed fervently and claimed the many islands around the coast totally devouring Krevar. No one knew about Lucila or Fushia much, and again the author had pages and pages of speculation on them. But if that old witch was to be trusted, Lucila was also no more.

Crevice was a unique place, it had recently formed due to the reckoning. It was deep under the world and some survivors also had made settlements there. I summarised in my head that the only places where humanity strived were the Cliffside and Crevices. So where were the darkseers, what were they doing now? I searched for this in the book but there was not enough mention of it, apart from the occasional abuse the author spewed hurled towards them.

I learned about magic and culture. There were no more schools of magic left. So, Puno must have been there when the Battle of Hora happened. I didn't have the guts to ask him about that. The magic in this world was fairly simple, chant the words and gesture appropriately to conjure. There were various basic spells mentioned and the way to conjure them. I tried the most basic one, the one Puno had conjured.

Leunva, nothing happened. I tried again, this time enunciating and thoughtfully gesturing with my arms.

Leunva, Leunva, Leunva , Leunva. I tried many times before giving up. Guess the magic in this world is not so simple. There had to be a missing element that the author didn't know or hadn't mentioned. There were two chapters dedicated to the history and origins of magic. Another chapter on various schools and kinds of magic. There was not even a mention of astral magic apart from the comment he had put about Vivandre's motivations. Strange. I skimmed through the magic and learned about the world's culture. In short, It was rich consisting of many human races specializing in different things but everything was gone to dust. No use reading too deeply about it. I found a section on musical instruments and read about the Ungran. It reminded me of the old man and the goat Toya. I had completely forgotten about her while reading. I had to hurry and find her before she got lost. I quickly skimmed through the pages, looking at the illustrations, and one tool caught my eye. It was called koska. It was a bat that was used to play koskina, a popular kids game (which was invented after the reckoning) in which two players stand apart juggling a ball in mid-air, and whoever drops the ball loses. The ball is made out of woolen material and is very light.

This put a smile on my face, even after the world had mostly been destroyed people still found joy in the small pleasures of life and had not given hope. The people at Junction were the last of their kind still, they went about an air that everything was fine. They were something else. Laughing at the face of despair and gloom. Vivandre had stolen light but she was not able to steal people's souls, laughter, and joy which emanated radiantly in the world. She had ultimately failed if her goal was to bring forth despair. People still clung to hope. The old witch's word rang in my head, You are our only hope to bring back the light. I had this newfound zeal in me burning, ready to let out and radiate. I closed the book and stood up bumping my head on the ceiling, "Oww". I had to save this world or whatever it meant, I couldn't let the sacrifice of the people of Hora go to waste and their culture and history destroyed. I now sympathized with why the author was so adamant about rambling his opinions and ideas and spewing on the darkseers, this was his way of rebellion. His way to defy the powers that stood above the world, surely he had meant the book for distribution if not for sale.

"Found what you were looking for?", Puno exclaimed when I entered the shop. Then he looked at me, pointing towards the pouch, "Eight hundred Yenas as promised.".

I pocketed the pouch on my waist. Puno declared, "There is something strange about you now. You seem different. What happened?"

"History."

I left the shop, thanked Puno, and asked for directions to Cardinal Inn. I decided to head there and meet Marnie. Old Man had told me to ask her to find him. And certainly, he could also lead me to the young goat, who now I was beginning to think was a magical creature, after all. If our fates entwined, we were to meet surely. For she would be the one to guide me. The words of the old witch were my hope to survive in this unknown world that peculiarly felt like home. By finding the old man, maybe I could also go to my world. The memories of my world had started to blur as well as my vision. When I was in the shop, my vision had returned but now it again had started to blur. My head ached.

The marketplace was empty, few people roamed around the streets which I figured were ones with no place to go like me or were drunkards. The glow was far less and people had decided to call it a day, this was nighttime. I must have spent hours in the shop reading. I decided to find a place to nap, with my head bursting and my vision decaying minute by minute. I had to rest. I found a cart full of haystacks near the downhill gate and climbed aboard and rested my eyes. I fell asleep.