Diary of a Conjurer (21 page)

“How can I save him? I don’t have any powers
to match a sorceress. I don’t even have a weapon.” Ivar leaned
against a tree and closed his eyes, the weariness of defeat weighed
on his body. “Maybe Silvio’s war isn’t mine. Maybe I should let the
old man go. Maybe I should go my own way and continue my Crossing
without him.”

Leaving Silvio wasn’t a decision that Ivar
felt good about. Aren or Amleth would have done differently. But
then, Aren and Amleth always had a weapon, a bow or a sword, or a
magical shield. They were leaders of a great army. Ivar had nothing
and led no one.

His feet dug into the cool
sand as he walked along the beach back to camp. His heart ached
having deserted a friend. “I promised I’d take care of him, and
look what happened. I’m a liar
.
”

He gazed at the dark ominous ocean which
stretched beyond the breakers and met the night at the horizon.
There may have been a ship’s light in the distance, but the Ivar
couldn’t tell. Even if the Hacatine was out there, it would be
foolish to confront her alone.

As he neared the camp, the bells of Skerry
tolled. The ocean roared a constant drone. The tide was coming in.
Ivar kept walking never stopping at camp. Instead he continued up
the beach, westward, in the direction he and Silvio had been
headed. He would forget he ever met the wizard and continue toward
that beautiful forest and green meadow. He would leave the
conjurer, Hacatine, and Promise behind. “Let them work out their
problems without me.”

Silvio’s Bane

Silvio winced. The pain was more than he
could bare. The rope tied around his arms and his chest burned his
skin. He was too old for this treatment and too worn to fight.
Losing his magic had taken everything out of him.

“There now, old coot. This will keep you
from rocking the ship!” The sorceress laughed after she tightened
the knot. She ruffled his matted hair. The other guard slipped her
fingers between the rope and his arm.

“Loosen it a bit, Brianna, we don’t want the
lines to rub his flesh raw. There’s no need to torture him. Let the
queen take care of that business. Personally I’m tired of seeing
men suffer. Besides, this one’s old and spent. He’s not going
anywhere.”

Brianna sighed and gave the line some slack.
“True. His discomfort isn’t helping our plight. We’re no better off
than this poor soul.” She lifted Silvio’s chin, inspecting his
face.

He squinted at her, but kept his mouth shut.
The words he was thinking would have done him no good.

“Hacatine’s unkind ways toward the wizards
are criminal,” Brianna kept her voice low, glancing at the hatchway
with anxious eyes. “Look at him. You’re right. He’s harmless.”

“Shh.” The other woman handed Brianna a
sword. “If Hacatine hears us, we’ll be tried for treason.” The two
climbed up the hatchway, leaving Silvio alone, tied to a post below
deck.

“Unkind? Bah, evil, more like,” Silvio
mumbled to himself. “And for all their sympathy what good does it
do me? Or them? Here I am. Bound up with ropes in the bottom of
ship for no good reason. ‘Careful,’ they say.” Silvio mocked,
making no attempt to keep his voice low. “‘Careful,’ they say! Bah!
Do they even know how to be careful?”

The ropes burned more now that they were
loose, as they sawed against his flesh with the slightest twitch.
“Can’t they see my bones are crooked, and the Beanbalkers tried to
bind them together straight?” He stretched his neck to release his
long hair from the binding. “Ouch! Bumstickers! Ow!” Once his
tresses were free enough not to pull on his head he sighed and fell
limp against the post. The dark of the lower deck enveloped him. As
if his own heart wasn’t gloomy enough.

The damp musty smell of mold itched his
nostrils and made him sneeze. “Blasted, filthy rig. What kind of
sailors are you? Look at this place! No respect for your ship,
that’s what kind! I’ll tell you why, too. You killed wisdom when
you killed the wizards. You took their magic and now what do you
know? Nothing, that’s what! Don’t even know enough to scrub the
ship.” He yelled at the hatch door hoping someone would hear
him.

When there was no response, Silvio closed
his eyes tight. Hacatine was too close; the ship smelled like her,
like greed. Distaste slithered over his tongue, and he swore it was
the flavor of wicked queen. He spat the taste onto the floor.

It’s over. I have nothing
to fight for anymore, and my powers are gone,
anyway
.
If they
want me to die, then I will.
Not to
satisfy their corrupt sense of righteousness, but to rid his weary
soul of tragic memories.

He hoped that Ivar would
nurture the magic given him for the sake of the Realm. Ivar was a
Kaempern. Kaemperns had integrity, led by truth and wisdom.
If Ivar is indeed a Kaempern, then he will fight
for good!
A Kaempern was faithful to his
people, the Meneks, Alcove and Bandene Forests, and the Xylonites.
Indeed, if any hope remained, it now rushed through Ivar’s
veins.

Silvio grunted and looked around the dark
hollow of his prison wishing he could float away. His absence would
not go without sorrow. He was king of the Xylonites. He was their
guide and their protector. Without him, the little people will
perish.

Silvio sat on that cold,
damp floor, rocking with the sway of the ship trying desperately to
control his wandering mind. He didn’t want to remember how Hacatine
had searched for him when he was little or how he had turned into a
tree to hide. She hadn’t seen him. He’d fooled her, but she’d
known, and his trickery had backfired. He’d been the fool. She’d
set the entire woods ablaze. Silvio came out of it as an old stump
of a body, permanently disfigured.
The
forest grew back
.
He grew old. She finally got her prisoner.
Maybe she’d leave Bandene Forest alone now that
she has him. Maybe the poor Xylonites would escape her wrath. Maybe
they’d find another king.

Ivar, alone, had the key to their safety now,
but did he have the passion? The Xylonites would smell the magic on
him. They’d find him and explain everything to him, how to use it,
and for what reasons. Ivar would become his apprentice even if
Silvio weren’t there to train him. Maybe it was better this
way.

Silvio’s dungeon was as dark as a Xylonite’s
tunnel. The planks rubbed one another with the constant swelling of
the sea, reminding him of the sound of the wind when it jostled
limbs in the forest. How he wished he were there smelling the fresh
menthol pine, rather than these rotten boards. Fixed on his
aloneness, he sighed and closed his weary eyes.

The ship moaned as it rolled in one direction
and groaned returning to the next. The sounds from above deck were
gone. The crew must have gone to sleep, the lot of them. He would
have too, if it weren’t for that constant gnawing sound.

Rats!
There it is again, a scratching and grinding, teeth against
wood is what it is.
Blasted rats are
chewing the ship apart.

But a chattering of voices came with the next
crunch, and then the breaking away of whatever was being gnawed on
until he couldn’t ignore it any longer. First the head of a weasel
appeared, its wet furry body slithered into Silvio’s dungeon and
curled up by his feet. Behind it trooped in another but this time a
Xylonite was on its back, and then another until the entire room
was filled with little people and wet weasels scurrying about
trying to get their bearings.

Before Silvio could say Gabbersnatch, his
ropes were untied and weasels licked his wrists. The old wizard
wriggled free from the rest of his binding and hugged the animals,
his tears of joy mixing with their wet fur.

“There’s no time for that now,” the boldest
and bravest of the Xylonites came forward. “We’ve got to go, and
now.” The soldier held a tiny sword and pointed it toward the hole.
“You’ll lay on that raft and they’ll swim you to shore, sir.” For
it was well known by the little people how much Silvio hated
getting wet. And he couldn’t swim, not a stroke.

The raft was made of reeds woven together and
carried into the ship by a team of Xylonites. All the little people
were soaked, but they had smiles on their faces having found their
King.

It took time for the Xylonites to maneuver
the conjurer onto the raft. His crooked body had grown stiff from
being tied, and he was bent in new contortions. He finally managed
to lay flat while several Xylonites jumped onto the mat next to him
and laced him with rattan so he’d not drift away should the water
spill over. After much scuffling, Silvio was secure. They took to
their mounts and one by one eased themselves back through the
breach, first their leader, then the weasels pulling the raft, and
then the others.

They entered a dark and damp hollow in the
ship. Silvio bounced over the planks underneath him, his back
rubbed raw because the mat was so thin. But soon he felt water
tickle through his clothes and the raft sliding across the
surface.

A dim light appeared, though on his back he
couldn’t tell from where it came. But the light radiated a glow on
the ceiling–that was really the bottom of the ship. But the mat
raft drew nearer to the light and Silvio floated out a large hole
that had been bored through the vessel. From there he bounded, raft
and all into the sea and under the moonlight.

It was a good thing he was tied to the mat
too or he may have jumped away out of fear and been lost forever.
Up and down he floated all the while tugged through the surf by two
strong weasels harnessed to his float.

Hah! And he thought that Hacatine’s ship had
been a rocky ride!

Silvio cried out once, but it did no good. He
would have cried again if there had been anyone near enough to
hear. But he saw none of the other Xylonites, so he just mumbled
complaints to himself, shut his eyes tight, and tried not to
swallow saltwater.

Shipwreck at Skerry

Having shivered himself to sleep to the tune
of sea bells, Ivar woke up damp in the midst of a thick, cold fog.
The ringing had ceased, so he knew the tide was out. His back was
sore from the hard rock that had served as his bed, and his neck
was stiff.

Heavy clouds hung over him when he awoke in
the morning. Though still damp and gray, Ivar was glad that day had
come. He rose, stretched and made his way down the cliff. The ocean
had receded far into the distance and the sandy loam, though foul
smelling, was a welcome relief on his bare feet.

Even more gratifying were the little geysers
that shot up through the sand around him. Ivar fell to his knees
and dug, one hole after another until he had harvested a good pile
of clams that weighed down the fold in his tunic. Sharpening rock
against rock, he formed a tool to pry the shells open. Too hungry
to take the time for a campfire, he ate every one of them raw,
casting the shells back into the water, and remembering the
Kaempern prayer of gratitude for the little souls that made his
meal.

His belly satisfied, he had
acquired a thirst from the salty breakfast
. I’d better scout for water
before
I do anything else
, he thought. Ivar
brushed sand from his hands and knees and shook his clothes. A
sprinkle of green dust flew off his shirt. It might have been
something from the beach, some discolored sand or seaweed. A pile
of green landed next to his toes and disappeared. In its place, was
a water skin. Ivar scratched his head and looked around.

“Where did you come from?”

He had lost his water skin on the beach at
Moor Cove. But here it was, and it was full. He opened the lid and
drank, cool and fresh as ever it had been. Strapping the leather
pouch over his shoulder he turned toward the sea and chose to take
advantage of the low tide and explore the jetty.

Seagulls spiraled around him once he stepped
past the windbreak, but Ivar kept his eyes to the ground as he
ventured farther into the fog; looking for whatever might have
surfaced from countless years of shipwrecks. Maybe he’d find some
legendary treasure from pirates long ago. Maybe he’d find a clue to
his past.

The jetty didn’t disappoint him, for the
farther from the coast he walked, the more skeletons of vessels he
found, old wooden ribs from ancient ships half buried in the sand,
bits of torn clothing, a boot, beautiful glass floats that sparkled
in the sun. Tearing the hem of the tunic, he was able to tie the
floats to his waist.

The beach narrowed, pools of water foamed at
his feet, and the sand he walked on slid off into shallow water
making a ledge, and then into the deep. He thought he might turn
back, but the fog was lifting and as it did sunlight flashed on
something up ahead. It wasn’t far under the water.

A gold coin perhaps? A pirate’s medallion?
When he bent over to retrieve it, he slipped, sinking slightly as
the sand drifted into a pool, his pants soaked up the sea. He
grabbed the coin before it disappeared and saw another larger,
black object in the water, which he pried loose from the wet
sand.

A foreign sight to him, small buttons that
bore a strange code lined the front. Some of the buttons he could
push, but others were tight from sand having been wedged into their
cracks. The underside was smooth and shaped to fit into the palm of
his hand.

Ivar set it on dry sand, and lowered himself
back into the pool, excavating the bank carefully. The entire ledge
of the jetty was lined with ship bones that were different than the
older vessels buried along the ledge. The remains of this ship were
still polished and shinning, not dry and white like the others.
Strips of cloth from her sails still floated in the shallows,
dancing eerily with the tide. Her wreck had been recent.