Caspar and the Lunar Magic

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Written by: on Tuesday, October 5th, 2010

Everything was perfect. The full moon shone brightly overhead, illuminating the dark woods with a silvery blue hue. Caspar went down to one knee and carefully laid down a handkerchief. He smoothed it out over the grass and squinted to make sure he didn’t smudge any of the markings. Unable to see so well, he pulled a candle out of his back pocket and muttered a quick spell to spark it to life. “There,” He said to himself as he lowered the candle to see better. Satisfied that everything was perfectly fine, he leaned back a bit and smiled to himself.  “The moon is in place. The spell is ready.  Let’s make magic!” He rubbed his hands eagerly as he rose.

The apprentice wove a spell around the handkerchief and the moon responded as it grew brighter than usual. The Goddess of the moon was aware of the spell that was being woven around her lunar blessing. A bringer of inspiration and imagination, the lunar magic teased and played with the handkerchief until the spell was complete! Each marking glowed so brightly that the handkerchief disappeared in a burst of flames. The markings soon scorched the grass as they continued to glow even more bright.

“Wh….” Caspar took a few steps back.

The markings exploded and sent the apprentice flying backwards. With a soft groan, he lifted his head and his eyes widened at what he saw. A young man was standing where the markings once were. The moon pulsed bright as the sun in the night sky as it shone down on this new stranger. With a final pulse, the moon dimmed to its former state and all returned to its dark silvery-blue hue.

Without warning, the young man bolted off into the darkness and disappeared. Fear welled up within the frightened apprentice. It was clear that his spell had worked but something in the back of his mind was screaming that he had screwed it up as usual. Finally his mouth worked. “Wait! Come back!” Caspar took off after the conjured stranger.

The forest was brought to a hush as all unseen ears swiveled and cocked towards the sounds of footsteps rushing through dried leaves.

“Come on! Slow down! Please! I don’t mean any harm!” Caspar cried out again. With a leap, he tackled the stranger and they both went crashing down to the forest floor.

“Get off me!”

Quite exasperated, Caspar shouted, “Just relax! I’m not going to hurt you!” When the stranger beneath him calmed, he sighed and slowly sat up. “What’s your name?”

The stranger turned his head, allowing the moonlight to illuminate his face.

A bolt of coldness ran down Caspar’s spine. There was something frighteningly familiar about this young man. It was as if…

The stranger slowly sat up and moved back a few feet. After dusting off his shirt, he looked at Caspar again. “Where am I?”

“Four Winds Crossing.”

“F- what?”

“Four Winds Crossing.” Caspar repeated slowly, still trying to figure out who this man was!

“Wait, what?” The young man slowly stood.

Excellent practice.

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Written by: on Thursday, September 16th, 2010

With the harmony charms tucked in a small leather pouch and safely deposited in his pants pocket, Sajon grabbed the crinkled note from his desk and bid farewell to Caspar on his way out. A quick glance to the crisp blue sky told him that the weather was going to be nice today.

“Wait! Master!” Caspar pleaded as he came down the front steps, “Romin isn’t here! Shouldn’t you wait for him to come back?”

A slight smile pulled at Sajon’s lips as he shook his head. “No. It’s beautiful today so I don’t think you have anything to worry about. web analysis Besides, I taught you how to reach out to him with your mind. Give that a try if you need help.”

“He doesn’t like replying to me.” Caspar whined. Suddenly he straightened up as a new thought occurred to him. “Either that or I’m not doing it right.  … No! I know I’m doing it right. I’m sure he doesn’t like me.”

“I have a delivery to make, Caspar.”

The apprentice didn’t seem to have any confidence and the wizard sensed that. Sajon placed a reassuring hand on Caspar’s shoulder and said, “One day you’ll be looking over these people with no one to help you. As you know, my master was indisposed pretty early on and I was forced to feel my way through things. This will make excellent practice for you.”

Caspar nodded slowly as he recalled Sajon‘s master. He wasn’t quite sure who did it but he remembered the rumors flying around school about a wizard amongst them that had been shrunk to a small size by a djinn. Imagine! To be forced to live a life where your height was only a few mere inches!

“Okay then. Good luck.” Sajon nodded before he departed down the street.

Caspar watched him go, fearing that an unwanted situation would rear its ugly head in mere seconds after the departure of his master. Looking around him, he said a small prayer before he fled into the house and slammed the door.

Later that night, one of Caspar’s worst fears came to life. After making a sandwich and heading into the living room, he froze as he saw an onyx-skinned djinn lounging on the couch.

“Hey,” Kanut chuckled, “Where’s Sajon?”

“I uh… I um… He’s not here.”

“I kinda figured that out when I couldn’t join him.” Kanut groused, “So where did he go?”

“You can’t join him? Doesn’t that mean-?” Caspar asked as he sat down in a nearby chair with the plate in his lap.

“Yes. Answer the question already! No wonder he finds you so annoying!”

Caspar shrugged helplessly. “He was delivering something to Wildwood.”

“Well, he isn’t there anymore, kid.”

Unfortunately the apprentice could only shrug again as he had no more answers to give. Caspar glanced down but was surprised to see that his plate was empty. When he looked up, he saw the djinn chewing heartily on his sandwich.

“Mmm… A bit dry but still good. Thanks!” Kanut cheered and saluted with the sandwich. “Think you can get me something to drink too?”

Failed balance causes twins…

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Written by: on Sunday, September 12th, 2010

Caspar brushed his short brown hair back and fought back the urge to sigh. Standing in Sajon’s small library still felt like an invasion of his master’s privacy, a sense of respect instilled into him from the early days when he was first sent to live here from the Clefton Mage School.

The wizard cocked a brow and straightened up in his chair. “Caspar?”

“There’s two more ladies at the door, Master.”

Sajon sighed as he abruptly stood, “You didn’t leave them standing out there, did you?”

“Yes, They just wanted -”

The wizard brushed his apprentice aside as he exited the stuffy room and hurried down the hallway. In moments he reached the front door and pulled it open with an apology prepared to fly out of his mouth but instead he saw only empty air.

“Master -” Caspar started to say.

“Caspar,” came the annoyed tone as Sajon closed the door, “It’s perfectly okay to let people in.”

“They didn’t want to come in.”

“… Oh?” Sajon’s attention was hooked.

“They wanted harmony charms.” Caspar glanced down to the folded piece of paper in his hand before he held it out. “This is what they wanted me to show you.”

The sound of crinkling paper was heard as Sajon unfolded the note. “Hm…” He mused out loud as he wandered towards the hallway.

“Master?” When no response came, Caspar pushed on as he followed, “Why do they only want one baby? What’s so bad about twins?”

Sajon paused and turned his head to look at Caspar. His apprentice was a bright young man but when it came to beliefs, some were lost on the wizard. He held up the note to illustrate who he meant as he explained,  “The women believe that having twins mean that a sense of harmony has failed.”

“What?”

The wizard nodded slowly, having expected the question to come rather quickly. He turned to face his apprentice as he started to explain. “It’s common for a woman to have one baby. That’s normal. The women that asked for the harmony charms are from a religion that believes that when a baby is growing, a balance is being struck. Good and evil. Light and dark. It dictates who you are after you’re born and live your life.” Sajon scratched his hair and sighed as he continued, “When balance isn’t achieved, they believe the two parts remain separate and thus a woman bears twins.”
“And that’s bad?”

“It’s one soul sharing two bodies. Seeing as how they believe harmony has failed, one is good and the other is bad. All people can do is speculate as to which is which because they believe the bad one will disguise itself by acting like the good one… and since the good one has a sense of love and loyalty, it will protect the bad one.”

“That’s not true though… Is it?” Caspar frowned to show his disapproval.

Sajon shrugged, “Who are we to say that it’s right or wrong? The important thing here is that they seek harmony charms to bring peace to their wombs and that’s never a bad thing.” The wizard left to his library to get to work.

Caspar shook his head and muttered, “They have twins because they tend to have twins in their village. That‘s what.”