Diary of a Conjurer

by D. L. Gardner

  His blood circulated, head stinging from the cold water as it met the warmth of the morning. It was an invigorating feeling, causing him to laugh. His hands glowed, which made him burst with energy even more. But then he saw blood coagulating in his palms and he stopped, stunned. His fingers touched the red liquid, and passed through the vision. Or was it a memory?

  At first Daryl thought it was just the pirates feeling happy from all the rum they were drinking. Somedays they would let him drink, maybe tonight. The pirates and the captain were celebrating their new plunder. Of course, Daryl told them where it was and showed them how the controllers worked. They were thrilled when they opened the door and found all the shiny things, and they were amazed and called it magic. Everyone had to try the controllers. It was fun.

  Daryl had coerced them into helping him catch the foreigner and get his dagger back in trade for the magic key. The kidnapped girl was tied, the pirates patted him on his back.

  “Not so dumb after all!” they told him as they walked from the ship to the campfire.

  He heard a loud noise and wanted to run ahead, but Adrian held him back as the other passed.

  “Walk with me and the prisoner,” Adrian said.

  It was dark so Daryl did what Adrian said. When they got to the fields, it didn’t look so happy. Men were on the ground moaning. The booms were still blaring, but arrows were whizzing by. Adrian pulled the girl away as one arrow almost hit her. The men behind them fell over. Daryl saw the glow, a bright light with children in it yelling. “Abbi!” they called, meaning the prisoner. The shield of light kept them safe as they ran to the captive girl. Arrows and blasts were just bouncing off of the light. It amazed him. If he was in the shield he’d be safe too, so with a hearty laugh, Daryl ran with them, dodged into the light, and stood with the girls. They screamed. He didn’t know he had so much power to make them afraid, and that made him laugh louder.

  The next thing he knew all the pirates and the crew were on the ground dead. Adrian had his hands in the air. Someone pulled Daryl out of the glowing globe, and tied his hands. The man who was their leader, the foreigner they called Ian. He took the controllers from the dead captain’s pocket.

  Ivar stood stunned wondering if indeed he had been a prisoner of the legendary King, if so, then he had been in the war, but he had been the enemy to the Kaemperns. Suddenly Ivar’s stomach turned, and he looked past the woods into the fields. The sun’s rays peeked out over the shadows of the forest and lit the gravestones with a brilliant light.

  He rose. His steps were slow, for Promise’s sight was still working inside of him and everything he passed brought some kind of memory to him. None of it had been pleasant. He was frightened to see what else her power would reveal. Hacatine’s words echoed in his mind “You are not a Kaempern.”

  At the edge of the grassland, past the headstones of the Kaempern warriors and chiefs were unmarked graves stretching far across the prairie. Promise’s power of seeing the past showed Ivar the people buried there, women and children who had fallen, their clothes and hair ablaze, screaming. It was a horrible sight. Burned alive. There were some men with them, but not many, only helpless, innocent people dying one after the other, charred and burned.

  Ivar stood as still as the headstones that marked their graves. Stunned.

  “I was wondering when you were going to see this.”

  The all too familiar voice came from behind.

  “It’s called the Trail of Tears. Legend has it that in the last war, hundreds of Kaempern women and children died here because of an unmerciful attack by a dragon. Imagine that, a dragon did this. These poor people didn’t have a chance, Daryl.”

  He faced her, his eyes wide, his heart pounding.

  Hacatine shook her head. “I wonder why it happened.”

  Silence.

  “What else do you see?” Hacatine’s wicked smile ate a hole in his heart.

  Speechless, Ivar wouldn’t have told her even if he could find words. He had seen the thunderous dragon soar over the prairie and swoop upon the string of innocent Kaemperns. He saw the blaze as it came from the dragon’s mouth and struck the ground. The grass caught fire, the people with it. All the while Daryl remained in the foothills, watching, twisting his dagger so that it caught the sun and shone in the prairie on these people.

  “Still want to know more? Go ahead. Go to Deception Peak. You deserve to know everything.”

  The vision of Hacatine disappeared.

  A few years ago, Ivar had walked this way with the funeral procession after one of the elders died. When they passed this part of the graveyard at the southwestern end of the prairie, though already solemn, folks suddenly stopped talking and bowed their heads. Ivar remembered seeing Britta take hold of Aren’s hand and squeeze it tight, drawing closer together. The Trail of Tears was more sacred than Elysian Fields. No Kaempern could approach the place without weeping.

  But in all the tales and war stories he heard growing up, no Kaempern had ever mentioned a dagger or a boy. It was almost absurd to think that a child could cause such a disaster. Hacatine had to have been lying; playing some kind of trick with his mind to make him think the death of all those people had been his fault. He couldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t! He may have been a foolish youth, mistreated and perhaps mischievous, but he couldn’t have been a murderer. Tears welled in his eyes. He couldn’t have murdered these people!

  This magic is sorcery. Who’s to say Promise isn’t in on Hacatine’s deception? After all, it’s Promise’s power that showed him these events, and she’s a sorceress, Hacatine’s warrior. Perhaps it’s just some sort of wicked curse, a trick to get him to relinquish the magic to Hacatine. He won’t believe any of what he’s seen. It’s a trick.

  Never trust a sorceress, Silvio had told him.

  The last of the fog had drifted inland and dissipated into the air, and now a dry breeze blew the dust at his feet as he headed toward the mountain range. The prairie grass was short and stubby, golden brown and parched from the sun. The blades poked through the hard clay ground, and the blackened earth that had been torched from the dragon’s fire years ago. The earth’s scar of war.

  Ivar stepped reverently through the field, whispering a prayer for the people who died there, and as he did, he heard a song that blew in from the sea.

  Forget, o lest the heart is sore

  And call your past of woe no more

  For in the night you once had died

  But in the morn been born alive.

  What sense do those words make? I hadn’t died. How do those words pertain to me?

  Ivar spoke them over and over again, humming the melody while breathing in the fresh sea air, every step bringing him nearer to Deception Peak.

  The Quickening

  Since Silvio had insisted on walking through the wetlands, the arrival to Elysian Fields took the entire day, much longer than they had planned.

  Xylepher halted the company before they emerged from the marsh with a long and breathy “Whoa!”

  “Blasted rack is killing me,” Silvio grumbled as he inched his legs over the travois. “What are you doing?” Silvio asked when Promise rose from her mat.

  “It’s been a long ride.” She staggered a bit as she reached her arms to the sky and yawned.

  He could have insisted she stay still until they decide what to do next, but it didn’t seem fair since he himself had sores from lying on the woven mat. Most of the moss had worn thin and the reeds had rubbed his skin raw in places. The wetlands had been the most difficult terrain to travel through, not just for them, but for the wolves as well. The mud was deep, thick and murky.

  After a short breather, and some secret discussion among the Xylonites, Xylepher pointed insistently past the reeds, down the beach and toward the mountain. He mounted his weasel again. “We keep moving. We’ll be less likely to catch the eye of a spyglass if we travel in the night shadows.

  Promise did not return to her travois, and though Silvio had reservat
ions, he let her walk. Slow, maybe too slow, but they persevered, Silvio and Promise, the wolves, Xylepher and his band of soldiers.

  Promise slipped once in the mud. She reached out and grabbed onto the shoulder of a Xylonite to break her fall. The Xylonite woman balanced the sorceress as best she could while other little people ran to her side to assist, though there was not much they could do to help.

  “Baldersnatch!” Silvio had been startled by Promise’s fall, and a bit angry at Ivar about her helplessness. He waddled in the reeds looking for a limb that could serve as a cane. With luck he found a smooth sturdy piece of driftwood and pinched off the protruding twigs to make a walking stick for her. He returned to the others who now had Promise upright. Silvio tapped her hand with the tip of the cane.

  “Thank you,” she said softly as she balanced on the limb.

  Silvio grunted. “There’s a rock on your right, and a stump on your left. And the mud is thick.”

  “The mud is thick,” she repeated, a cynical smile on her lips. “As if I couldn’t tell.”

  “Very well, then.” Silvio guided her through the marsh though he dare not touch her. Wizards don’t touch Sorceresses, can’t trust them to touch them, not even the helpless ones. Wicked they are, and might cast some spell to cripple something, or me, as if that would make much difference.

  Still upset at her request to save Taikus, for all he knew, luring him back to Taikus could be one of Hacatine’s traps to get him to the island. Shouldn’t listen to a crying girl. Might mean death. Silvio kept a close eye on the Xylonites who walked next to her.

  When the caravan came to dry ground the sun was past its zenith. Shadows of Alcove forest spread over them, and the air turned cool. Silvio stopped next to Xylepher. “I don’t think we’ll catch up to Ivar.” He watched as the rest of his company pulled out of the marsh. Promise and her helpers came first, then the congregation of little people. Last came the wolves still harnessed to the travois and led by the soldiers on weasels. “We’ve been too slow. Hopefully the fool youth will head to the Kaempern camp. Maybe Amleth will talk some sense into him. Make the boy give me back my magic. Make him stay home. Now that would be a good thing!”

  Silvio and Xylepher followed the last of the caravan to the shores of Elysian Fields. From there they could see Inlet Bay, a vast expanse of water separating the Bandene Peninsula from the Northlands.

  Before Silvio had a chance to speak, the Xylonites ahead of him called out in panic, cried and wailed all sorts of unintelligible noises.

  “What is the fuss?” Silvio asked.

  Xylepher gasped. “Look, Silvio, sir! Hacatine’s ships are entering Menek. They’ve invaded the North.”

  The one thing Silvio had wanted to avoid beyond all cost was for his people to panic. Now here they were scrambling around like bees without a queen. “Bumshackers, Xylepher can’t you settle them?”

  Xylepher was as dumbfounded as Silvio with the confusion. “Never mind. We’ve arrived at Elysian Fields. All well indeed. We’ll make camp, get something to eat and establish some order.” He turned to Xylepher whose eyes were wide in disbelief. “Xylepher, get these soldiers under control,” Silvio nodded toward the men who had already dismounted and joined the others in the frenzy.

  “Yes, sir.” Xylepher pulled off his helmet and with a sweaty and worried face asked, “How, sir?”

  Silvio sighed. “Put them to work. We need firewood. Have them pull the supplies out of their saddlebags? Gather some rocks for a pit. They can forage for food; pick some thimbleberries in the woods. The young ones can dig for clams.”

  “Yes, sir.” Xylepher rounded up his men, which seemed more like herding chickens.

  In time, the fire burned and the aroma of nuts roasting settled in the meadow. The little people still jumped around with anxiety, glancing off at the bay, chattering among themselves. Silvio gave the idle ones the job of exploring the meadow and rounding up two horses, one for him and one for Promise. Since some of the Xylonites had been riding weasels, which could run and tunnel and scurry along quickly, everyone would make better time if Silvio and Promise were mounted as well. For the next leg of their journey, Silvio would turn the wolves loose and leave the travois behind.

  “I don’t understand how the Xylonites are going to catch the horses.” Promise stood by the campfire warming her hands as Silvio stirred the coals with a stick.

  “A little bit of oats,” Silvio mumbled, wondering if it were at all possible for a little person to catch a horse.

  “I don’t know much about horses. We don’t have them on Taikus. But I’ve seen them. They’re big, Silvio. They could stomp on the little people. Squish them.”

  “Bah. Xylonites are fast. That’s one thing about them. See them one minute, next minute, poof.” He snapped his fingers and did a double look at Promise. There was a smile on her face. Silvio’s chest puffed. Hadn’t seen her smile before.

  “I just don’t want them to get hurt,” she whispered.

  “Neither do I,” Silvio held out a cup of tea and a piece of toast made from nut meal. When she didn’t respond to his offer, he laid the toast on a stump, and unthinkingly took her hands in his to wrap them around the wooden cup. Touching her sent a chill down his crooked back. She was a sorceress, and here he was a wizard. These things weren’t supposed to happen. He shuddered as he drew his hands away. She was calm, though pale. Perhaps she was as surprised as he was.

  Frustrated as to what to do with the bread, he waved it around for a moment. “Open your mouth.”

  When she did, he broke off a piece of toast and set it neatly on her tongue.

  “There,” he mumbled, brushed the crumbs off his fingers, and quickly turned away.

  “Thank you,” she said as she chewed.

  “Don’t mention it.” It came out grumpy, but he was more comfortable being a grouch anyway. What he really meant was not to tell anyone that he had touched her, but he didn’t elaborate. Who would she tell? He rested in the field and enjoyed the scent of the grass and the sound of gentle waves splashing on the sand at the end of the bay. His repose was interrupted later by Xylepher.

  “Sir, they’ve caught two horses. We’ve used the ropes that harnessed the wolves, sir, so I guess you won’t be using them any longer.”

  “That’s the intent.” Silvio looked out across the field. He couldn’t see the Xylonites; they were hidden in the tall grass, but two horses stood still, their tails swishing, and their heads low. “Good, Xylepher, then bring them here. We’ll get started again after we eat.”

  “It’s a day’s ride to the Kaemperns, still, sir. Do you intend to travel the entire night? Or do we make camp in the prairie?”

  Silvio thought long about that. They probably wouldn’t make it to the foothills before nightfall, and the prairie was a hunting ground for predators. A Xylonite would be a tasty delicacy for an owl or a coon, whereas Elysian Fields was a sanctuary. They could probably come to Kaempern by nightfall tomorrow if they start early in the morning.

  “The Xylonites could tunnel in the prairie,” Promise said. “They’d be safe underground. If indeed Hacatine is at Menek we’d better keep moving.”

  She was right, though Silvio’s weary bones would have been more comfortable bedding someplace for the night.

  “Bring the horses here, then,” Silvio kicked dirt on the fire. It’d been a long trip but hopefully this was the last leg of their journey. If they camp in the prairie, they’ll be in Kaempern before noon tomorrow. He gazed off into the distance, the sun now sinking to the horizon. Though the Menek village was far from them, smoke rising from what would be a dock filtered into the sky. He then saw something that instilled a spark of hope in his heart. He saw a golden glow at the base of the mountain where the village was.

  “The Dragon Shield,” he whispered. “Hacatine will have more to contend with than she expected.”

  The Mount of Deception

  Ivar glanced out over the water only once on his way up the hillside. The fle
et of ships approached Menek, and the gold of the Dragon Shield’s light covered the village like a globe. If Hacatine was attacking, Amleth would be there, and so would Aren. It won’t be a long battle. The Sorceress won’t break through the Dragon Shield, and with the Songs of Wisdom wreaking havoc, she’d risk being shipwrecked again. She’ll give up before tomorrow night, and then we’ll be free of her.

  There wasn’t much sense in going home to Kaempern with a battle ensuing in Menek. Britta would ask too many questions and he wasn’t prepared to talk about what he’d been through, not without telling Aren first.

  I’ll wait in the foothills until Hacatine is gone and the Kaempern army is home again.

  Ivar lingered amongst the cedar trees as he watched the last of twilight settle over the valley. The whole northwestern terrain spread out before him. The prairies, the marsh and Alcove Forest to the south. To the east Hacatine’s fleet lingered in the waters near the sea port at Menek, no doubt preparing for an invasion. Beyond the fishing village were the Fjords protruding from the water, their peaks barely visible through the fog.

  His gaze returned to the shore that met the grassy fields, where a tiny glow of firelight danced. Someone was camping on the trail he had traveled earlier that morning. A foolish thing to do. No one in his or her right mind would be aimlessly wandering that desolate and dangerous terrain without purpose, especially not at night. The prairie was a hunting ground for wild boar, bobcats, and nocturnal predators. Only strangers unfamiliar with the northlands would camp there.

  Perhaps the vagabonds were spies sent by Hacatine to invade a less protected Kaempern village. Or perhaps it was Hacatine herself seeking Ivar with the intent of taunting him again, or robbing him of Silvio’s powers. Either way, Ivar wasn’t going to be found. He wanted to put as much distance between him and Hacatine as possible. Cross-country will be the best way to travel now, abandoning the trails to hide in the mountain. Ivar knew this country well. It was his home and his hunting grounds.