Diary of a Conjurer Page 6

  “He is. He’s also as young as you are.”

  “How did he come to need rescuing? I mean, if he’s a wizard, wouldn’t those tribal people be afraid of him? Wouldn’t he scare them by showing off his magical powers?”

  “Is that what you would do?”

  Jacques laughed. “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. When you have magic, you'd want to boast a little, I would think, especially if you're around folk who aren't nearly as gifted. It just seems the natural thing to do.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s possible he showed off his magic. If so, I hope it was effective. However, the last I saw of him, he was swimming toward a surge of arrows. Whether they hit him and he died, or was wounded and captured, I don’t know. But I'd like to find out before we enter the village. It’s not my intent to cause trouble with those people, nor to show off my magic.”

  Jacques glanced at him. “You did, already.”

  “No. I was using my magic. There's a difference.”

  The boy fell silent, keeping pace with the wizard.

  Kaempie added quietly. “If Meneka's been slain, I would like to retrieve his body and give him a proper burial.”

  “That’s kind of you,” Jacques said. “My family would do the same for me. If they knew where I was, I mean.” He stopped. Kaempie sensed the boy’s unrest as they waited for the others who had fallen behind.

  “Where is your family?” he asked.

  Daylight was fading, and they had just reached a summit overlooking the ocean. Where they stood, the air was fresh and carried a taste of the salty sea. Jacques pointed toward the cloudless heavens now turning pink and gold with the setting sun.

  “Out there somewhere. I'm afraid I'll never see them again.”

  “I don't understand,” Kaempie said.

  “There was a horrendous storm. The tempest pounded on our ship as though Hades itself sought its destruction. We were certain we were doomed. The main mast split like kindling. Tossed violently by a raging sea, our ship took a lunge for the heavens and then dove toward the devil's caldron, spilling out of our world into this one. It sounds incredible, I know. But believe it or not, that's what happened. Armel and Hermaz think we’ve been spat into the pit of Shoal.”

  The pit of shoal? Kaempie didn't understand some of this man's imagery, but the emotion behind it said enough. “This shoal—it must be a terrible place, then.”

  “It’s a cursed place of eternal torture.”

  Armel and Hermaz climbed the last rise and approached breathless.

  “Well, Jacques, I think your friends might be wrong. There are terrible things that happen here, but there are good things, too.”

  Jacques shrugged. “I've yet to see any. You believe me?”

  “I believe you came through a portal,” Kaempie whispered. He saw nothing unusual in the direction Jacques had pointed. The renegade’s ship moored near the cove and he noted that some repair had been made to the broken mast. Perhaps they planned on using it again.

  Off in the distance, a brilliant glow lit up the horizon, and then the entire coastline across from them burst into flame. Alcove forest was on fire. Kaempie’s heart stopped.

  Silvio and Reuben would have traveled that far by now.

  Smoke curled into the sky in billowing black puffs.

  “Wow,” Jacques whispered. “That’s some fire. I wonder what caused it?”

  It wasn’t lightning, that’s for sure. Not on a clear cool day. It wasn’t heat, either. “Maybe a dagger,” Kaempie whispered, not meaning for Jacques to hear.

  “The ground is level here. Let’s make camp.” Armel said, dropping the pack from his shoulders. “I’ve had a hard day.”

  The sun was sinking like a red fireball into the sea. The fog that formed over the water would soon be rolling into the foothills, making travel difficult if not impossible. By Kaempie’s estimation, they were no more than an hour’s walk to their destination.

  “Alright,” he said. “Let’s sleep. We can survey the village before dawn.”

  Jacques and Hermaz rolled out their bedrolls. Armel gathered wood.

  “Not tonight.” Kaempie warned.

  The man scowled. “I’m cold.”

  “And if you make a fire, you’ll be dead before the sun is up.”

  He stood with his bundle staring rebelliously at Kaempie.

  “The natives will see your fire. They’re not hospitable to strangers. That I know.”

  Armel threw the wood on the ground, looking to his friends to interject, but no one did. Jacques was already wrapped in his blanket and Hermaz snored under his fleece. Armel mumbled something inaudible and laid his bedroll on the ground.

  Kaempie had no plans of sleeping. He’d stay up with the crickets and the night owl, keeping watch. As exhausted as he was, his pounding heart kept him awake. Fear that Silvio and Reuben may have died in the hands of Hacatine turned his stomach. If she had taken their powers, she’d be even stronger now. But worse was the guilt that weighed on his heart. Kaempie, being the oldest, was supposed to have protected his friends.

  Dusk fell into dark. The day’s warmth tapered into a chill, and then a crisp wind picked up. Stars appeared, but quickly faded as clouds moved swiftly from the northwest. A low whistle, and then a deep pining melody filled his hearing. He glanced at the three men wrapped in their blankets, snoring, and oblivious to danger.

  “Kaempie, Kaempie,” the wind called.

  Kaempie lifted his head and listened.

  Our breath calls your name.

  Your peace sings the same

  Wisdom transcends the power of light

  Completing the day, fulfilling the night

  Join in our strength, our freedom and might

  Release now your magic, be one in our fight.

  A sudden gust alarmed him. He stood. The swift moving clouds cast dark shadows, but there was still enough of a clear sky to see small glimmers on the ocean surface. With the gale gaining strength, he wasn’t sure if the lights in the distance were reflections or stars. When a flash of lightning invaded the dark, the glint of a sail confirmed his suspicions. Ships were approaching.

  The fury of a storm thundered an angry warning. The wicked queen Hacatine had set her course to the Northland. She was coming for him, for Meneka and for victory over these unsuspecting people who called this land home. Hacatine had been brewing her evil for years, certain that when she possessed the magic of every wizard alive, she would have the power to overcome the Wind and reign as queen of the entire world.

  But Kaempie realized earlier that day the wind had given him a solution.

  If I relinquish my magic to the one force that she cannot conquer, then she’ll never possess it. Never. It will always work against her.

  Kaempie had never heard of a wizard sacrificing his own powers. He’d seen the men from whom Hacatine had taken magic. Once the green energy of wisdom and will was depleted from their systems, they were mindless vegetables, dependent on their loved ones to sustain them. It was a horrible state of being. No one would ever ask to live like that.

  Still, it isn’t me that matters. What matters is that Hacatine is denied her final triumph. I was born with these gifts, and fate has demanded that they be taken from me. If I act now while I’m strong, I can at least determine where my magic goes.

  He turned to face the oncoming tempest. Wind cut the rain against his face, making it almost impossible to keep his eyes open. He lifted his head and held out his arms. The rain permeated his skin, dampened his lips and cooled his cheeks. “Take it then,” he whispered as he felt the magic tingle inside of him. “I have no use for it if indeed Silvio, Reuben, and Meneka have perished. I have no defense against the Sorceress. You have saved men and nations for good causes. Papa talked about you.”

  His eyes welled with tears at the thought of his father. If only the wind had saved his papa. The warmth of salty drops mixed with the cold rain cascaded down his cheeks. “He said you were our hope, and so I’m here to give you ever
ything in his honor. Everything I am. Take my powers of wisdom and will, and use them against evil.”

  I have no idea what I’m doing. Wizards don’t give up their powers. But what else can I put my faith in?

  He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, letting the force of the tempest fill his lungs, and then his being. Had his feet not been planted firmly on the ground, he swore he would be flying.

  The wind answered him.

  Give us the song of wisdom

  Give us the song of healing

  Your will remains your own.

  Despite the storm, the tone was soft, its sweetness reminded him of the voices of his sisters.

  “I will,” he said and surrendered his magic.

  With a sudden jolt, lightning struck. Blazing heat crackled through his body and a flash of bright green hovered over him only for an instant. Stunned, he stood motionless as the aura disappeared. His eyes stayed fixed on the three men he had climbed the mountain with as they jumped from their beds. Their faces were deathly pale as they gaped at him. They grabbed their blankets and raced down the hill toward the beach.

  When the shock wore off, the gray of morning lightened the sky. How long Kaempie had been standing there, frozen like a statue, he couldn’t tell. The storm still raged. Streams of running water rushed around his feet and cascaded over the rocks. He was numb from cold. His drenched hair lay flat against his head, drops trickled off of his nose into his mouth.

  With a shudder, he turned his back to the wind and began his trek toward the fishing village alone.

  Reunion

  Kaempie had expected to come across the wreckage of the primitive driftwood shelters he had seen the morning before. The storm was hefty enough to cause such damage. But when he spied the cloth skins of the yurts holding up against the rain, his heart raced. Those are Taikan yurts, and they were not here yesterday. Meneka must have survived.

  Slipping down the side of the bank, past the boulders that bordered the forest from the valley, his heart burst with excitement. He leapt from the last rock and landed on his knees in a stream of mud, laughing. Meneka is alive.

  A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, diverting his attention to chaos along the coast. Three ships struggled in the storm, sails down, and one lying broadside to the raging sea, beating against the rocky point. So near to shore were they that Kaempie could see its crew. He rose from the mud, wiping his hands on his leather pants, his eyes peeled to the disaster. A figure draped in black stood on the quarterdeck, calling orders to her team of rescuers, her own ship drifting dangerously close to the reef.

  Hacatine the cursed witch, daring the Winds to battle. And she’s losing.

  The Sorceress lifted her hands to the sky in a ceremonial gesture, one Kaempie knew all too well. She’s releasing some sort of curse and she’s holding the dagger.

  Rising from the depths of the ocean came a monstrous sea slave, the serpent that had tipped the wizard’s skiff near the shores of Bandene.

  But no, it’s not the same one. This monster has wings.

  With a fierce roar, the creature emerged in a funnel of salty foam, stretching its slimy appendages as it took to the sky.

  He’d never seen the likes of such a creature. Fear captured Kaempie’s heart and he turned away to hide. As he did, he eyed a familiar figure running from the shore toward the mountain.

  “Meneka!” Kaempie shouted. But the storm screeched, the ocean pounded, and Kaempie could barely hear his own voice. The serpent soared overhead with the wind spinning around it, shooting out an ominous finger that picked it up and slung the creature through the clouds, carrying it to the mountaintop.

  Meneka followed its path.

  Kaempie struggled through the mud, over the bank and behind the yurts. Bucking the force and tripping through the rocky terrain, he hugged the edge of the valley as he ascended, ever conscious of Meneka's location.

  Where is he going?

  The rain thrashed, thunder shook the earth, and lightning struck. A loud crack of splintering wood came from the coast. Kaempie looked over his shoulder to witness Hacatine’s ship beating against the rocks. Two longboats rode the tide out to sea, survivors escaping the wrath of the gale.

  Meneka stood high on a cliff now, surveying the catastrophe. Kaempie scrambled toward him and called again, but again his voice was inaudible. When he saw that Meneka threw off his shirt and held a brilliant burning globe, Kaempie stayed his ground.

  With a commanding toss, the flames shot out from Meneka’s hands and spun into the clouds in pursuit of the serpent. The fiery mass took on the image of a dragon and engulfed the winged sea serpent. The two battled through the storm.

  A crowd of people emerged from the yurts, pointing in awe at the mountain.

  He doesn’t have the kind of magic to create a real dragon. It’s a vision. That little deceiver! He’s planning on taking credit for what the winds of the North are doing. He'll be called a dragon slayer. Meneka, you fool! That’s wrong. That’s against our precepts!

  “Meneka!” Kaempie shouted as he dodged out of view of the villagers.

  Meneka had turned his back and walked regally toward the peak. Kaempie raced to intercept him, and as he did, the dueling monsters rolled from the clouds and fell from the sky.

  With a sudden crash, lightning struck the serpents, and they soared toward Meneka, a flaming torch diving from the heavens. The young wizard fell as they touched ground. Kaempie rushed to the young conjurer's side, dragging him into the shadows of a cave just as the serpent, now fused with the vision, swooped back into the clouds and disappeared.

  Kaempie rolled Meneka on his back and lifted him onto his knees. His chest was charred, his clothes melted to his skin, his face burned and blistered beyond recognition, his breathing labored.

  “Meneka,” Kaempie whispered. Meneka opened his eyes. Kaempie held his hand over the conjurer's face, and then realized he no longer possessed the gift of healing. His cool, wet hands drew the fever from the boy's burning body, but they could not heal it.

  Meneka blinked, dazed for a moment before he focused on the older wizard. “Kaempie. Heal me.”

  Tears welled in Kaempie’s eyes as he shook his head and struggled to speak. “I can’t.”

  “I’m dying, Kaempie. Heal me. It hurts.” Meneka struggled for air, shivered and then rolled his eyes.

  Kaempie pulled Meneka closer to him. “The Northern Wind has my magic, Meneka,” he whispered. “And my gift of wisdom. Hacatine will never possess it.”

  Meneka scowled. “You gave it away?”

  I gave it away, and now I regret it, for your sake. This doesn’t make any sense. We came to be saved by the North Wind, but instead we were robbed by it.

  “You’ve failed me, Kaempie. You’re not the hero you thought you were.” In a desperate effort to turn his head, Meneka looked into the deep of the cave and lifted his hand. “I'll give my magic away as well.”

  “Meneka, don't. Don't just give it up to the unknown. You don't know what will happen to it.”

  “Do you care?” he asked, still staring into the dark of the cave, a dim glow trickled through his fingertips and a ghoulish green mist floated into the cavern, vanishing into the tunnels of the mountain. “There,” he said. “Let whoever is the hero use it now.”

  Meneka died in Kaempie’s arms.

  Heartbroken, Kaempie buried his young friend in the soft soil of an aspen grove at the western mouth of the caves.

  The Foreigners

  The next morning, the rain subsided, and blue skies brought a freshness that would have lifted his spirits had Kaempie not experienced such loss. He wasn’t sure why he was returning to his skiff. Nor was he certain that if the boat were still there, would he row away from these lands and spend the rest of his life at sea.

  As he followed the creek into the gulch he heard voices behind him. Kaempie slipped into the brush and held his breath as the three foreigners approached.

  “Well, at least you’re good for
something, Jacques.” Armel said as they passed Kaempie’s hiding place. “Beach combing can pay off, that's for certain. Good eye, boy.”

  “What are you going to do with it?” Jacques asked.

  “You saw how that serpent flew into the sky, didn’t you?” Armel answered.

  “You’re going to draw serpents from the deep? Aren’t you afraid they’ll turn against us? We don’t know any magic words.”

  Armel laughed. “I don’t care about serpents. But if it can open up the sea, I’m betting this little dagger can open up the heavens, too.”

  “It could,” Hermaz agreed. “If we sail to the right location. What do you bet?”

  “You have the sextant, the compass?” Jacques asked, his voice anxious.

  “I even have the charts. We’ll navigate where the ship was before we dove into this snake pit, and then we’ll see if we can’t get this thing to get us back.”

  “Home!”

  They laughed. “Yeah. Home with a magic dagger! I bet it brings a pretty penny!”

  Something about the three men taking off to sea with the Taikan dagger seemed amiss to Kaempie. But he wasn’t thinking as clearly as he used to, and failed to sense any urgency concerning the magic of his island. He watched the three renegades as they rowed his skiff out to their ship, boarded and hoisted sail.

  It wasn’t until sunset that the sky lit up with an explosion. Kaempie wondered if indeed they had traveled home through a portal.

  ***

  The young wizard retreated to the woods. He built a yurt and stayed to himself. Sometimes the dragon-serpent would appear overhead, flying from the mountain eastward, leaving flames and destruction in its path. Sometimes those flames would come from the village. Though he was remorseful of the natives' plight, after the death of Meneka, Kaempie no long felt capable of saving anyone. Without his gifts, he couldn’t heal a single wound, nor trust himself to make a wise decision. He simply did not interfere.