The Book without Title: Legend of Appearing of Elves and Nonats

         

The people of the Earth didn’t believe in existence of the parallel Worlds but they existed. There were plenty of them – the Twins Worlds, the Reflection Worlds, and many other Worlds. Progress of events and time wasn’t the same in different Worlds. A World was going to be born when another was going to die. One second hardly passed in a World when in another eternity was over. Every World was unique.

Sometimes when they crossed travels from a World into another became possible. Many adventurers used it not only because of curiosity but because they wanted to bring Knowledge about life in other Worlds to their folks. Travelers between the Worlds were called Wanderers.

Several Worlds stood out against the others. These Worlds were results and receptacles of magic. And World Inur was one of them.

There were no Men in World Inur. It was its great particularity. But nobody could say it was deserted. Not at all. Other folks lived there: Centaurs, Valits, Marluses and so on. Some of them were familiar to Man from the stories brought by Wanderers.

Each folk of Inur had its own magic. Their magic was powerful and elemental. All the magic obeyed them – the magic of Earth, the magic of Water, the magic of Fire, the magic of Air and the magic of Senses. The magic was distributed very evenly. It wasn’t so that the folk acquired the magic of the others. And it wasn’t so that the folk owned the whole magic of its element, it was given to several folks.

But once…

Once blood of all the folks mixed and a new creature named Elf appeared. These creatures took all the best from the Primordial Folks. Elves took beauty and appearance after Fairies, mastery and power after Gnomes, wisdom and greatness after Centaurs, kindness and inscrutability after Valits, ardour and obstinacy after Marluses, love to beautiful things and music after Leprechauns, love to risk and adventures after Delphens, insolence and passion after Eltars, calmness and power of anger after Lavits. As a result there appeared a tall and delicate creature with two arms, two legs and one head, big deep eyes, long pointed ears, beautiful voice and smart hair, owning enormous numbers of gifts, certain physical strength and gigantic will-power. But the colour of hair, eyes and skin was dependent of… magic!

Yes! Elves owned magic. They were the incarnation not only of the features of the Primordial Folks but of their magic too. Saying the truth, magic of Elves was a little different. Some of them could hardly acquire the magic of one Element when others owned magic of several Elements in full. Marluses and Eltars gave Elves the magic of Fire. Lavits and Gnomes presented them the magic of Earth. Valits and Fairies gave the magic of Air. Centaurs presented the magic of Senses. Delphens and Leprechauns - the magic of Water.

Though Elves were descended from the other races, they were treated as equal in power and mind. They took part in deciding the fate of World Inur. But the balance of magic was broken by appearing of Elves – they had absorbed nearly all the magic. If there was very much magic somewhere, there was the place without magic at all. And hundreds of years after there appeared one more folk. Though it could be hardly called a folk – creatures lacking in magic at all appeared among all the folks. But they were the very image of their accentors. These creatures were called nonats, the deprived.