Legend C – The Book of Wandering Worlds

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No one knew when the Book of Wandering Worlds had first appeared, for it was never where it was left. It rested on tables that were never found again, opened in rooms that no longer existed the next morning, and sometimes it simply appeared, as if it had decided to be read. Its cover was old, made of dark leather, soft with use, yet it bore not marks of wear, but rather the patina of many places. Whoever opened it saw at first only drawings, fine lines suggesting landscapes, forests, rivers, strange plants that corresponded to no known land. But the longer one looked, the more these images began to gain depth. Ink became space, lines became light, and between the pages a world opened, not abruptly, but quietly, as if it were remembering. On such a night, the book lay open on an old desk, while a small lamp cast its warm light upon it. A river rose from the pages, narrow and clear, flowing between palm trees and exotic blossoms, and the water left the paper, dripping over the edge as if it had decided to become real. The room held its breath. Plants grew from the margins of the pages, roots intertwined with the lines of the writing, and those who watched understood that this was not a representation, but a transition. The book did not wander through the world; it carried worlds through it. Each page was a place missing elsewhere, each illustration a piece of reality without a fixed place. Those who dared to place their hand inside the book felt not resistance, but the cool promise of water, moss, and foreign air. Yet the book forced no one. It waited, patiently, knowing that only those who understood that travel also meant loss should enter. For whoever entered one of the wandering worlds never returned entirely unchanged. Some lost memories, others gained ones that were not their own. There were readers who, upon returning from the book, drew maps only to find that the paths they depicted no longer existed the next day. Others closed the book and never found it again, as if it had decided to move on. The worlds within were not stable; they shifted like thoughts, reforming themselves when no one was watching, and sometimes they exchanged places. A jungle became a coastline, a river a path, a clearing a starless sky. The book was not an archive, but a wanderer, and its pages were resting places. Those who stayed with it long enough understood that it didn't want to be read, but accompanied. In rare cases, a world grew so strong that it left the book, broke free, and took root somewhere else. Then people spoke of places that had suddenly appeared, of islands that weren't on any map, of forests that had materialized overnight.