Diary of a Conjurer

by D. L. Gardner

  “What are those explosions, sir?” Xylepher asked.

  “Those? Not sure.” Silvio answered, watching the sky to the northeast as he rubbed the ache in his back.

  “Are they bursts of white light?” Promise’s blank stare rose toward the heavens.

  Silvio had forgotten about Promise’s condition; she rode so quietly with little complaint.

  “Yes, Miss,” the soldier answered.

  “That’s Hacatine’s power colliding with the Kaempern’s shield. I’ve seen it before. It’s an incredible sight up close.”

  “It’s a fearful thing.” Xylepher nudged his weasel closer to the long legs of Silvio’s mount. “So far away, and yet so resonant even on the prairie. Do you think she’ll win?”

  “She’s not giving in,” Promise answered.

  Silvio looked at her, riding tall on the mare as though she and the creature were one. He wondered what she was thinking, if she hoped for a Hacatine victory.

  “Wish you were with them?” he sneered.

  “Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

  Silvio raised a brow. “Worked out our differences, did we?” his tongue rounded a ball of saliva as he looked for a safe place to discharge it, not wanting to hit his friends below.

  “Our differences, perhaps. Not theirs.”

  “You think our differences don’t line up with theirs? You think there’s more than two sides to this conflict, do you?”

  “I have friends on Taikus, friends that stand alongside the queen. I would give my life for them, and they for me.”

  Silvio shot his spitball into the grass at the mare’s feet. “Bah,” he said as he wiped his mouth. “Should leave you here in the sand then. Just like your queen tried to do. Blasted Taikan. Blasted sorceress.” He shifted in his saddle. This confession of her allegiance turned his stomach. Why should she be riding with us? Has he put the Xylonites in danger bringing her along? Here he thought she hated Hacatine and now she wants to fight alongside of her. I should slay her. Now. He grabbed the hilt of his sword but his soft heart prevented him from drawing it.

  “You’d do the same for your little people, Silvio,” she added softly.

  “I would,” he growled, though he wasn’t sure how he’d fight without his magic. “Seems your queen won’t do the same for you.”

  “It’s her prerogative. She’s sovereign. If she chooses to pluck me from her flock, there’s nothing anyone can do. I’m exiled, like you are. You know the feeling. I would think you’d be a bit more understanding.”

  “Bah!” Silvio shifted positions, waving the idea away. “I understand. She’s ruthless. No leader at all. Not mine even if I do come from Taikus.”

  “If it’s any consolation, for you. I hate her as well.”

  “You hate her?” Now he was alarmed for he had no idea where she stood.

  “I do.”

  “But you’d fight alongside of her?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said I would give my life for my friends that stand alongside her. As for Hacatine, I would lift a sword of mutiny against her at the wink of an eye.”

  That silenced Silvio. He watched her ride, her chin held high. Didn’t trust her, not completely, but he admired her.

  Once they arrived at the foothills, a scramble took place. The weasels balked at the cliffs and had to be coaxed up the mountainside one by one. It was a long drawn out process so Silvio rode with Promise into the shade of the rock over-hang by the shore. This slow traveling tested his patience. He wished he were in the Kaempern village already.

  Mid-afternoon found them atop a hill near a stretch of dark rocky cliffs that over looked the ocean. Silvio expected to turn toward the forest at that point, but Xylepher kept his men moving toward the bluff on a road that meandered above Moor Cove.

  “Are you sure this is the way?” Silvio asked him. “Shouldn’t we have been to Kaempern by now? At least we should be in the trees. What do you remember about this trail?”

  “Sir, it’s been a long time. I haven’t come this way since I was a child.”

  “I thought you traded with the Kaemperns.”

  “I do, sir, every year. But we always meet in Alcove Forest.”

  “Bungersaltch, Xylepher! I thought you knew where we were going?”

  “Well, sir I do. We’re going to the Kaempern village, sir. I’m just not sure how we’re getting there.”

  Silvio reined in his horse. He hadn’t ever been to Kaempern. The farthest north he’d been was the graveyards and that was only once, when they buried Vilfred the Kaempern Sage.

  “Do you know where we are?” Silvio asked Promise.

  She shook her head. “No, Silvio. All I see are dark shapes against a gray light. I have no senses anymore, no sight whatsoever. But if we are following the water east, I would guess we’d be in Menek before too long. Perhaps fate is calling us to battle.”

  Silvio grunted.

  “The man who has your power will most likely be drawn to the war. That may be our destination,” she added.

  He gave her his green eye. “What do you know?”

  “I know that a warrior is lured to the battlefield. Someone with the abilities Ivar possesses won’t be able to stay away from the challenge. He’ll be there.”

  “The battlefield? You don’t think he’d go home to Kaempern?”

  Promise scoffed. “Is that what you’ve been thinking?”

  Silvio shifted his weight on the mare and looked eastward. Smoke rose and faded into the clouds. They were near enough now to smell the battle and the explosions sent the earth beneath them rumbling.

  “Yes. That’s what I’ve been hoping. Evidently I’m as blind as you are,” he whispered, and nudged his mare onward. “Take us to Menek then, Xylepher.”

  Golden Arrow

  There’s only so much running a man can do before his knees start to crumble under him, his lungs tighten so that he wheezes, and the muscles in his sides and stomach cramp. Ivar would have run his body into the ground if he hadn’t slid across the cavern floor, sprawled on his hips, and spun circles over the ice. When he finally stopped, he lay motionless, staring at the cold blue above his head.

  At first the frost soothed his overheated body. Then it numbed his nose, his chapped lips, and the tips of his fingers. Ivar covered his ears with his hands to warm them, and that’s when he heard a tapping sound.

  He sat up, careful not to send his body in a spin again. The sound came from an abyss not far from him. A steady beat. A drumming slower than his pulse.

  Tap, tap, tap. The man hanging from the ropes over the pit chiseled away at the ice.

  Daryl had a secret hideaway he could see the Kaemperns from. There were sixteen men in all. Most who waited nearby, idle, but the chief-man, the one with the long curls, he guarded the stakes that held the rope. That man, he was the boss. Daryl was going to keep an eye on him because when that man gave the word, they’d pull the miner up from the pit. This time they would also pull up the sphere that held the secret to the portal. Daryl knew because he heard them say so earlier that day. Soon it would be Daryl’s sphere. He just needed to keep the dragon nearby with his magic dagger. And he needed to wait patiently in the shadows so no one would see him. He listened to the tap of the miner’s pick.

  Ivar moved slowly to the mouth of the abyss, not too close, for fear of falling, but close enough to gaze into the hole. Black as night and deep as eternity, his eyes followed the spiraling pillars of frozen liquid down into the dark. There were shelves along the way, formations of ice, some flat, and some circular. One of the shelves glowed, radiating light from an object that lay on it, an object not natural to the cave, gold in color, metal. A dagger.

  Balls of liquid rolled off the edge of the shelf that the dagger lay on, and fell into the deepest hollow of the abyss, tapping slowly somewhere onto the floor below. Drip, drip, drip. A slow steady sound as ice melted.

  Enchanted by its beauty, Ivar stared at the golden weapon. Pools of water surrounded its hi
lt causing circles of color to shimmer throughout the cavern, and on Ivar hands and face.

  It’s real. That dagger is not a vision. It’s so real that ice melts around it.

  Well beyond reach, there was no physical access to it, unless to fall into the depths of the crater and never return. Ivar smiled, wet his lips, and then his tongue found the space between his teeth. He knew a way. All it would take is willpower. Silvio’s will power.

  “There’s one more thing you need to know before returning the dagger to me,” a voice echoed through the cavern.

  Ivar scurried away from the dark hole, pushing against the frozen floor until he was sure he wouldn’t fall into the aperture. Then, with careful footing, he stood and moved slowly toward the light. The voice had come from one of the tunnels. Hacatine was not yet in the ice cavern.

  She mustn’t know I found it. She mustn’t know where it is.

  “I can show you now, or let you find out for yourself. Either way, it will break you, Daryl.”

  Her figure was nearly camouflaged by the darkness of the tunnel that she stood in, but her face paled in the blue light, and her silver hair gave up her hiding place as it shimmered like mist on a moonlit night.

  “I don’t believe your visions,” Ivar said. “They’re lies.”

  “Are they? Which ones are lies?”

  “I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t kill Adrian.” Talking to her was painful, but he saw, now, there was no way to escape from her presence. His legs were so weak that he had to press his body against the wall of the cavern to keep his balance.

  “No?” She asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Don’t you remember Adrian?”

  “I remember him. He raised me. He was the only friend I had when I was small.”

  “His blood is on your hands, Daryl.”

  Ivar looked at his hands. Marbled into the green and yellow magical powers that traveled through his veins wove a thread of red. His body shook, sweat streamed from his brow.

  “Go away!”

  The figure turned back into the tunnel and disappeared. Ivar folded his fists together, holding them tight in an attempt to calm the trembling. But he didn’t stop shaking any more than he didn’t stopped Adrian from dying.

  He inched his way toward the light, hoping to be out of the caves and into the sun, back to an environment he knew. But the light he walked toward wasn’t daylight. It was moving at amazing velocity directly toward him. He felt the heat of it as it neared, and ducked so that it spun over his head.

  If it was another of Hacatine’s visions, why did Promise’s magic glow from his hands. As much as he wished he were wrong, the power inside of him told him it was a memory. The light was a fireball and it headed toward the cavern.

  That’s when Ivar saw the Sage crawl from the pit, swinging a leather bag up over the ledge. Amleth and Aren pulled the ropes that dragged him. When the cave exploded the men raced for safety and were spared. The fire crashed against the cavern walls.

  Ivar heard a shout and then saw the arrow fly. He stood stunned. The dagger was in his hand, light flashing from it.

  “No!” someone screamed. “You will not kill my father.”

  Daryl laughed and stepped further into the cave, aiming the beam of light on the men who were working. An arrow sailed at him tearing through his shirt, his skin. It drove through his rib cage and pierced his heart.

  Daryl cried out and doubled over. Blood splattered against the cave walls and his knees crumbled beneath him. He slid onto the ice in a pool of blood. Eyes opened wide, the archer stood before him, a young man, dark hair, dark eyes. Someone called his name. “Ian.”

  Ivar knew who Ian was. He had heard the Sage, Alex, talk about his son many times. Ian had been a war hero who exiled himself so that their world would be spared from tyranny, from the dragon, and from this boy. This Daryl.

  From Ivar.

  It felt good to die. The horror was over. The blood that he had shed, the women and children on the Trail of Tears, the innocent villages, Adrian, was poured out on the ground now. Daryl would cause no one else’s death.

  But before Ivar closed his eyes he saw Amleth raise his bow and string a shimmering gold arrow. Ivar recognize that glow. It was the light of the Dragon Shield; the magic of the Kaemperns. It was the light that, when stirred by the Songs of Wisdom, shielded the people from evil.

  Amleth aimed his arrow at Ivar’s heart. Their eyes met. Ivar opened his mouth and cried out. “No. What are you doing?”

  Amleth didn’t hear.

  The arrow ran through his body and penetrated his heart.

  He had felt this before- the sensation of blood rushing to his head, chills racing up his spine, and a warmth in his lungs, though he was immobile.

  The men lifted Daryl in their arms and tied him to the wolf sled. They carried him home in the storm and when the boy woke, they gave him a new name. They named him The archer. Ivar.

  “Why?” he asked as he lay against the wall. “Why would they do that?”

  “To torment you.” Hacatine stood over him now, only half of her mouth curled into a smile. “They want to punish you, Daryl. They wanted you to feel the living death their survivors feel. All that you did to their families, they couldn’t let you just fade away in peace. They raised you up for this day, to show you the truth. To make you suffer. To punish you.”

  Ivar looked up at her, too weak to argue.

  “That’s why you need me. To help you through this.”

  “How are you going to help me?”

  “I’m going to give you the strength to end the punishment.”

  She walked to the mouth of the abyss. Her head bowed as she gazed into the pit. “You found it.”

  The silence was as cold as the ice cave, until the wind that blew through the narrow tunnels whistled. Ivar listened to its tune, hoping for a wisdom.

  “You have to return it to me.”

  “I don’t have it.”

  She pivoted around to face him. “You can get it.”

  “If I do, I won’t give it to you.”

  Her pale skin flushed with anger. “You will.”

  Ivar shut his mouth and bit his lip. He wouldn’t, but neither would he argue with her.

  “Bring it to Menek. I’ll give you a ship of your own once you do. Then you’ll be free from the Kaemperns’ torture. You can be a fisherman, live where you want. Be free. Marry Promise. I think you’ll like that. Think about it.”

  Ivar sat against the cave wall for a long time after Hacatine’s image disappeared. He took deep breaths to control his rapidly beating heart.

  The pool of blood that had surrounded him a few moments ago was gone. It had been a memory. The arrows that pierced him had been real. That Ivar knew for sure because he bore two scars over his heart. Neither Amleth, Britta, nor Aren ever told him where those scars came from, but now he knew. He was once Daryl, the boy who was killed in the ice caves, and brought back to life by the Dragon Shield.

  Was it kindness that caused the Kaemperns to save his life? Or was it as Hacatine suggested? Had they intended to torture him for his wrongs? Amleth had allowed him to live . . . No, forced him to live. After all the horror he had caused the Kaemperns, how could resurrecting him be a good thing? Daryl was an enemy. Now that all these memories were planted in his mind, how could he ever return to his village? How could he ever call it home again? He could never be Ivar the Kaempern again. He would always be Daryl the foreign enemy. Always. Ivar would look into their lying faces and know that they know who he is, even when they deny it.

  Ivar wiped the sweat from his face with his shaking hands.

  Hacatine was not a friend either. There could be no truth in her words even though she’d led him to the dagger. She claimed it was hers, but was it? He’d found it in the other world at a gypsy campsite. Maybe Hacatine had stolen it. It was a weapon of power, power that belonged to its bearer. Maybe the dagger decides who its bearer is.

  Hacatine had her
army. The Kaemperns had their tribe. But Ivar–Daryl–was alone in this world. He had no home, no possessions, no army, and no tribe.

  Daryl owned the dagger once. Daryl would own it again.

  And getting it out of that abyss wouldn’t be so hard. All it would take would be a wizard’s willpower.

  Golden Globe

  The blasts were so loud that even though he covered his ears he couldn’t mute the sound. The Xylonites huddled at the fork of the trail at the Eastern Edge, and cried in agony after an exceptionally rapid succession of blaring explosions rattled the forest. With smoke so thick, and the little people so upset, Silvio dismounted and sent everyone into the thicket. Xylonites scurried everywhere, tossing their packs on the ground and turning the weasels loose. They ran in circles, disoriented and upset.

  They need to tunnel.” Silvio shouted to Xylepher, who looked as confused as the others.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Isn’t that what they prefer?” The conjurer asked.

  Xylepher’s eyes twitched as they jotted back and forth. The soldier watched his friends cough and wave smoke away from their faces whenever they could uncover their ears.

  Silvio gathered the belongings the had dropped, and slung the packs over his shoulders. He set the horses loose and watched them gallop away. “Come this way,” he said to Promise, leading her to the edge of the forest. Promise walked behind him, tapping her cane as she moved. She was a pitiful sight, stumbling on rocks and roots so Silvio cautioned her around obstacles with his voice. He was still hesitant to touch her.

  “Taking this whole band of Xylonites into the war zone would be a mistake,” Silvio said as he gathered several Xylonites to him. “I don’t think they can handle the blasts. They shouldn’t have to.”

  “It would be best, sir, that is if you don’t need us.” Xylepher winced when another bolt of lightning struck the Shield. “Please, sir, there’s nothing we can do now. Not with everybody all shook up like this.”