He quickly left thelibrary and raced down to the workshop. His excitement and obviousenthusiasm was noticed. He grabbed Alpha, some parchment a quilland ink and sped back to the library.
‘Do I know any Yith?’he asked Alpha. Curiously, Alpha was hesitant in answering andeventually said no.
He didn’t worry. Healready had a plan of attack for the manuscript.
He turned to thesection on how to make power crystals. He knew every word on thepage, except he knew it in Panmagica common. Here it was written inYith, which used the draconic alphabet, which was pronounceddifferently to the common alphabet.
He had seen and readthis text a hundred times or more - he knew it perfectly, as he hadused it countless times. He selected the text under one of thefigures and wrote what it should be from his memory. Then herewrote the common into Draconic using the draconic alphabet. Thereit was almost exactly the same, except the Yith had four extracharacters. He mentally mouthed the words and discovered that theextra characters represented special sounds not usually used foundin common such as ts, ch, zh and och.
The Yith languageseemed to be ancient Draconic without spaces between the words, butincluding the special characters not used in common. There werealso words that he did not recognise but had to guess.
He excitedly turned tothe page showing the ball of clay and writing it on parchmenttranslated it using his knowledge of Draconic. The page headingread ‘Chaos matter.’ and the text underneath read.
‘The Lord sayeth ‘Withthis dirt I turn chaos to order. Think and it shall be.’' Then itshowed directions on how to recognise the substance.
Identification
1.Flatten a ball of thesubstance with the palm of the hand and watch it reform its ballshaped structure over the next few minutes.
2.Examine the substancewith the magic eye and it shall look lifeless.
3.The mind wizard ofthe seventh order can cause the substance to deform to hiswishes.
Just as he finished, incame High Wizard Featherdown.
‘What’s this, justlearned Yith have we! That’s curious! I asked your grandfather ifyou could understand Yith and he said you couldn’t. Would you mindexplaining please!’
Aquitain was quitesurprised at Featherdown’s aggressive attitude.
‘As a matter of fact,you are correct, Your Excellency. Ten minutes ago I would have saidI can’t understand Yith, but if this is Yith then it is very likeancient Draconic and you would understand some of it, since it issimilar to the language used to write wizard powers.
‘You may have learntDraconic as I did, where it is written using the common alphabet.This script uses the Ancient Draconic alphabet where the lettersare pronounced differently. It is also written from the right tothe left rather than the way we do it in common. Let me read thisbit aloud. ‘illumeninsit thurgol frabrintus.’ Do you recognisethat? It’s a key to producing magical light.’
‘By the Powers, do youmean the Yith are using magic in the same way as we are?’ saidFeatherdown.
‘Granddad told me thathe believed many of the words of power originated from the dragonsand that we copied them. Many scholars maintain however, that itwas the newmans that discovered magic and that the dragons copiedus. This old book suggests that my grandfather was correct. Maybeboth the newmans and the Yith have copied the words of power fromthe dragons.’
‘How did you work itout?’
‘I looked in OldHoary’s Encyclopaedia for information about the ball of clay andcouldn’t find any. That prompted me to look elsewhere and when Ifound this half book I recognised the figures on one page as thesame that we use in our workshop manual back in Panmagica. Here,I’ll show you. See the inscription under that diagram? I have readthat hundreds of times over the years, but in common. In here it iswritten in Draconic. If you take care to pronounce it carefully, itsounds the same as we’ve been using for years.’
‘Did you find what youwere looking for?’
‘Yes, Your Excellency.Here it is in the book, and here is the translation.’
Featherdown readAquitain’s translation and said ‘What do you think it means?’
‘It suggests that amind wizard might be able to manipulate the clay to change itsshape using his mind,’ said Aquitain.
‘Are you a mind wizardof the seventh order?’ asked Featherdown.
‘I have no idea, YourExcellency. I have never heard of any grading system for mindwizards.’
‘Where did you get theclay?’
‘From my mother, YourExcellency, it was a gift from my father.’
‘Where did he get itfrom?’ asked Featherdown.
‘I have no idea, YourExcellency. My mother said the last time I saw him was when I wasabout eight years old. I can’t remember him.’
‘Was he newman?’
‘That’s a strangequestion' thought Aquitain, but he replied ‘Of course, YourExcellency.’
Featherdown lookedperplexed for a while, then said ‘Good, I’m glad you found what youwere looking for. Perhaps you can translate some information thatI’ve found that seems like it was written at the time of the GreatStorm. It may shed some light on what happened.’
‘I’d be happy to, YourExcellency.’
As soon as the HighWizard left, Aquitain hurried back to his workshop to test the ballof clay. He also borrowed the Yith half book to see what else itmight reveal.
Just as Aquitainreached his workshop, Zephira turned up. ‘I’ve got some good news,’she said with a smile. ‘The High Wizard wants you to make two pairsof magic bracers like mine, for the new wizard defenders to use intraining. Isn’t that great?’
‘Yes, yes that soundsfine. I’ve found out what the ball of clay does. Come in andwatch,’ he said excitedly. He hadn’t been this excited since he wasin his newman body.
He closed the door andlocked it securely. He sat Zephira on a chair and asked her to keepquiet. He placed Alpha back on the shelf where it had a commandingview. Immediately, it told him that the rat was watching.
‘Jaztrix, I know thatyou’re watching,’ he said without looking. ‘Thanks for telling meabout the Yith book. Just hope that I can make this stuff work forme.’
He cleared hisworkbench off and placed the ball of clay in the centre of thevacant area. He first squashed it down with the heel of his hand,and then just watched. Slowly but surely it reformed its ballshape.
‘Look that’s the
