Free Diary of a Conjurer by D. L. Gardner Page A

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