Nego's back was burning, but he managed to say something without stammering. 'What, were you?' Tagu tilted his head to one side, and a flash of light blinded Nego's vision, and he saw ... a white buffalo calf.

It looked at him, eyes bright and mocking. Nego managed not to run around the castle screaming that his spirit animal had turned into a youngling. 'Tagu?' The buffalo butted his leg and tilted it's head to the rafters. And it dawned on him on what Tagu wanted.

He scooped Tagu with one hand and disappeared in the structure of planks that held up the roof of the wide corridor that would eventually lead to the Hall. Nego set Tagu down and opened his pack.

The leather book.

With shaking hands Nego opened the dusty old book. The pages had brown spots on them, untouched for the last few hundred years, protected under the leather cover that was both smooth and rough with strange symbols on the front. It was a very thick book, and Nego had found it behind a shelf in the library.

Nego had had the book for the longest time, but for once, he saw the symbols on the cover change. The symbols seemed to change, and Nego had a feeling that only he and Tagu could see it. The symbols turned into letters, the letters turned into words, and the words turned into large, black letters emblazoned on the book.

The Book of Visions and Glimpses of the Future

The sun was setting, and Nego lit his oil lamp, he knew he had some reading to do.


The symbols changed the minute he flipped the page. There were drawing and words scribbled into the book, prophecies, stories of the future, visions and glimpses ... There was so many things. There had been visions of the first and second war, the bile, the evertree, a land underground called Sandre, the Great Beasts ... It turned out to be rare to have a straight forward dream without any riddles, and rarer to see things in the past that no one had actually seen.

'Why did a book so important, never get deciphered before. The summoner of Briggan, Conor maybe some Greencloaks who were gifted in the past?' Nego asked mini Tagu. Tagu flicked his ear and gestured to read on.

There were so many things to read about, it was impossible to get bored.

Nego never had much time to read, but at the inn he worked, the owner had several books.

If a spirit animal refuses to go in passive state, it means several meanings. If the summoner has bonding sickness, even after mastering passive state, there may be complications. Other reasons suggest the spirit animal knows something.

Strange powers may not mean strange spirit animals. Powers such as changing age, causing a sphere of stillness, making time slow, more than the average speed a spirit animal gives.

Age changing can last forever, which would be both good and bad. Age changing is an uncanny ability which can lead to more powers. Weather the animal is older or younger, age changing is nearly extinct, so you don't have to worry your animal will grow really, really old or be as helpless as a newborn baby, probably.

'Tagu, if you are really going to stay small forever, I suppose I can't ride you anymore, but I wonder if, there are more abilities.' Nego closed the book, and realized it was night. He spread his bedroll over the plank of wood and closed his eyes.