Chapter One: A New Master

    For a time, he concentrated, but nothing happened.  The leaf remained as it was.  Ganalon grunted in exasperation.  How useless could he be if he can't even set a tiny little leaf on fire.  He quickly became frustrated with this impediment and grew extremely angry.  In his rage, he threw the leaf away.  Seconds after being released from his hands, something spectacular happened to the leaf.  It exploded in a cloud of fire.

    "What the devil?" he exclaimed.  Now excited, he picked up another leaf and tried to set it on fire again, but once again, nothing happened.  His anger rushed back.
    "It must have been just a simple fluke" he said as he threw the leaf away again.  Again, the leaf burst into flame just seconds after.
    "For some reason," he said, "it seems as though the leaf only lights when it is released from my hands."
    He pondered this for a moment, but unable to come up with anything, he turned to go back to his master's house.


    As he began to walk up the trail to the house, his master bumped into him. 
    "Master Valakai," he said, "my apologies, I didn't see you.  I have somethings to ask you master, that is why I was coming up this way." 
    "What is it my pupil?" Valakai asked, as they began to walk up towards the house.
    "No matter how hard I tried, I could not set the leaf on fire, and I gave up." said Ganalon, "But when I threw it up in the air, it combusted only seconds after it left my hand."
    "Well now, that is quite interesting.  Maybe you..." but at that point, Valakai stopped dead in his tracks.  "No..." he said.
    "What is it master?" asked Ganalon.
    "It can't be..." Valakai continued.
    "What is it master, what's wrong?" Ganalon asked, starting to become frightened by his master's reaction.
    Valakai ignored him however, and ran back to the house at a remarkable pace.
    "Wait master!  Come back!" Ganalon shouted, as he began to run after him.