The Pogrom of Mages: The Healers of Glastamear: Volume One (17 page)

Chapter 34

An hour after Michael began his search, he detected the two weak healer manna signs and four strong fire mage manna signs. As he neared the location, it was still quite dark, but his
night surgery
spell allowed him to see two young girls with healer manna high in the branches of an ancient oak. The four fire mages surrounded the tree; each in turn cast fire balls past the top of the tree in what appeared to be an effort to scare the youngsters into coming down rather than harm them.

Michael used mage thought-talk to determine what was happening from the girls. They were sisters, Isabelle who was twelve and Anna who was thirteen. They were from the nearby village of Azure Falls. The knight protectors had broken into their house and abducted them, saying they were to become healer priests. Their parents had resisted because they knew that the healers were being killed all over Glastamear. The knights had set the house on fire and killed both parents with their swords as they came out of the inferno. When the abductors made camp the following night, the girls had fled to the highest part of the oak tree where the branches were too small to support the weight of an armored knight.

The girls knew almost nothing of magic and did not seem surprised that Michael was a healer who had taken the form of a Giant Ki Eagle or that he could talk directly into their heads. The Village of Azure Falls had been too small to have its own healer, and the girls had never seen magic until the fireballs of the knights.

He cast a powerful
quench fire manna
spell, one he had learned from Obert but never used. The fireballs stopped immediately. He landed on a stout branch and asked the girls to climb on his back through mage thought-talk; they scampered onto his back and held his feathers. He cast
dwarfish strength
so that he could easily carry both of them and leaped into the sky, gaining altitude fast enough to avoid the arrows of the baffled knight protectors. He used the healer spell
calm soul
to lower their fear of flying and headed back to his camp.

At his camp he let the girls dismount and asked them to wait while he changed forms. He went behind some bushes, resumed his normal form, dressed in the clothes from his pack, and returned to the camp where he built a fire to cook some breakfast for the frightened girls. He saw they were shivering from the cold night air and cast
winter blanket
to warm the whole area of the camp. They sat and talked for an hour about what had happened. The girls were afraid to return to their village and wanted to learn more about healing magic, so Michael offered to help them get to a safe place where they could become apprentice healers.

Young village girls would not normally wear any type of ring, much less the gold ones he had enchanted to hide manna. He took out two small gold chains and pulled copper from the nearby soil coating them to hide the gold. After enchanting them, he explained to the girls that they must wear them every minute until they reached a location safe from the knight protectors. They clearly understood the risks after seen knight protectors kill their parents, and they promised to never take them off.

Michael decided that the safest way to get them to Black Sand Beach was to find the nearest dwarfish travel room. Thinking of the map he’d memorized, he realized that in the foothills two days north of his current location was a barrow that had once belonged to fairies who departed with the elves two millennia earlier. Near that ancient barrow was another travel room.

After they had all rested, Michael, Isabelle, and Anna set off for the travel room, the girls both riding Michael’s packhorse. Their travel through the scenic countryside would have been fun except for the recent tragedy the girls had suffered. In spite of the loss and their fear, the girls never ran out of questions for Michael and they rode side-by-side along an ancient stone road.

They wanted to know if he’d ever been any other animal besides an eagle; he had not. They wanted to know how he’d escaped the knight protectors who killed almost every healer in Hearthshire Province; he explained the help of the Naiads of Black Sand Beach. They wanted to know why they were going toward the mountains and not toward the sea where the naiads could help; he explained the dwarfish travel rooms. On and on the questions came. It was more talk than Michael had engaged in since the death of his mentor William. He loved it.

On the morning of the third day they stood over the location of the travel room. A pack of huge Cloud Mountain wolves had followed until Michael used mage thought-talk to direct them to a stag with a broken leg. The uninhabited woods seemed to have many dangers so he cast
stone dome
to protect the girls and horses while he began to use
excavate
to make a ramp leading down to the travel room. Two dwarfish statues guarded the entrance like all the other travel rooms. He traveled to Black Sand Beach to check that everything was safe before bringing the girls through, and found it was a long way from safe.

He immediately detected a huge number of fire mages, perhaps two hundred. He could tell their fire magic had been completely suppressed by
submerge manna
casted by the naiads, but that didn’t make knight protectors harmless. All of them carried two-handed swords and double reflex bows.

Michael used his fairy magic to become an unsubstantial form and drifted by through a ventilation hole he’d left in the tunnel. He saw massive changes in the beach. The knights and priests had set up three catapults and were lobbing stones at the reef. They had used a dozen wagons to bring in the stones and other supplies. The knight protectors had already demolished the top of the tower where he had stayed while visiting the naiads. Fortunately, they seemed to be completely unaware of the shelter he had prepared for the healers now that their manna was hidden and the entrance to their shelter concealed.

The healers should have plenty of food for another month, but he worried that the catapults were doing damage to the naiads’ home. He was furious that they were trying to kill his allies, and he returned to his normal form ready to do battle. He longed to charge into the fire mages with his elfish sword and cut them down. Somehow he controlled his temper thinking of what William would have wanted him to do; certainly his mentor would never have wanted a slaughter.

Michael remembered something that the fairy leader Morgan had said. She had commented that his manna was so strong he could assume any form, even a dragon. As a dragon protected by a
stone armor
spell, there was nothing the fire mages could do to hurt him. He decided that his priority was to destroy their catapults to stop their effort to hurt his allies. He had only seen one dragon in his life, a black one flying many miles away, but that sighting and the many illustrations of dragons he’d seen in books and paintings were enough.

Michael transformed into an enormous black dragon, thee hundred times the size of a Giant Ki. He soon realized that even with a massive wingspan, dragons could only fly by using the techniques that fairies used to reduce their own weight. He adjusted his weight and took off from the cliff, screeching his anger and shooting fire from his throat.

He cast
stone armor
and
dwarfish strength
and dove straight down to the nearest catapult, scattering the knights who were working it and grasping it in his talons. He scorched knights as he flew to instill fear before he lifted the catapult high into the sky and dropped it into the sea far offshore. He returned and did the same to the other two, each time sending a hundred knight protectors scattering while blasting fire at them to scare them away from the beach.

By the third time, four score of them had organized into a squad of archers. They loosed volleys of eighty arrows each time he was near.  All of the arrows rebounded from his stone armor without his even feeling their impact. He destroyed the third catapult. Michael flew low over the archers buffeting them with his powerful wings and screeching in anger. The blasts of air from his wings knocked them tumbling across the sandy beach; the fire from his throat scorched them. They ran in panic.

Next he destroyed their wagons and scattered their horses. Soon the vast majority of the knight protectors and priests had retreated from the beach into the adjacent swamp. They were running directly into the greater danger of the Great Black Thicket. He didn’t want to kill any of them; the swamp animals would certainly try, especially since their fire magic had been suppressed and they couldn’t easily detect the danger. They would be unable to detect life forms with magic or use fireballs to kill them. He circled the beach blowing fire over their heads to encourage their retreat and several times landing to throw groups of knight protectors around to increase their terror. Soon the Black Sand Beach was empty except for remnants of their camp, broken wagons and a few panicky horses.

He flew low over the swamps screeching his anger while blowing fire and continued to patrol the beach diving at anyone who tried to return. Finally he landed on the remnant of the naiads’ guest tower and surveyed the scene. He realized that he was running low on the manna needed to keep his huge form powered.

He transformed back into his normal self and looked through the tower for the clothes he had left there. He found the chest of treasure and a chest with clothes. He dressed and used dwarfish spells to reform the tower, cladding it in black steel so that any future attempt to knock it down with a catapult would fail.

Once he was finished, he swam to the beach where Obert and three other naiads were inspecting the camp’s remains. “Obert, I’m sincerely sorry if those humans brought harm to you and your people.”

Obert smiled and said, “I think it will be a long time before any of them return. It seems you have learned things that even I didn’t think were possible. I congratulate you on driving them off without killing any of them. That is what a real dragon would have done although I doubt they realize that. A few naiads were slightly injured when they first started with the catapults, but after that we just went deeper.”

Michael asked, “Are the healers all still in the rooms I constructed? Did any of them see what happened?”

“They have no windows and none were outside when you arrived. I used mage thought-talk to warn them when the fire mages arrived three days ago. Do you ask because you want to keep your power a secret?”

“Yes.”

“They will not hear about it from us Michael, but the story will be known to every human in Glastamear before winter. A dragon attack is the best story in centuries, and there is no way it won’t grow in the retelling. I think it will be five hundred years before any fire mages return to Black Sand Beach.”

Michael replied, “All the church will know is that a black dragon didn’t want them to bother the Naiads of Black Sand Beach. It doesn’t need to involve a simple healer like me.”

Obert nodded in agreement. “We don’t know how to lie, but we do keep secrets through silence.”

“I have two young girls, just beginning to show healer manna that I need to bring through to the beach refuge. I’ve left them longer than I intended already. I’ll speak with you again tomorrow to see if there is anything I can do to repay the kindness of our naiad cousins.

Chapter 35

Michael returned through the travel room and found both girls sleeping on the pallets he’d left for them. Black Dash was restlessly pacing along one side of the stone dome spell, and Michael used mage thought-talk to determine what was disturbing him. Black Dash could hear wolves. There was a pack of eight enormous wolves probing the
Stone Dome
spell trying to find a way through to the horses and girls. He reached out to them through thought-talk but found only anger and hunger. They would not be easily deterred.

Michael knew he could face them with his elf sword shielded by a
stone armor
spell, but he was exhausted from his recent dragon transformation. He decided to try and sleep for a few hours; the current protection of the dome would last at least twelve more hours.

It was the smell of food that awakened him. It was not long after dawn, and Isabelle had made a fire where she was cooking oat porridge with dried blueberries and walnuts, food she had found in his packs. Anna was using water from the small spring to clean herself. Black Dash was still pacing anxiously because the hungry wolf pack was testing the perimeter. The dome spell enclosed a spring and a pool of water that overflowed to form a small stream. Michael saw one of the wolves digging in the soft soil of the stream trying to get under the dome. Of course, Michael had left an opening for the water to get out. He had also left part of the top of the dome open for ventilation. The rest of the pack had gathered behind the digging wolf, and they would soon be through.

Michael was angry with himself, realizing that the girls would have been trapped and easy prey if he had waited longer to return to the camp or slept another hour. He pulled his two-handed elf sword, opened a different section of the dome with the
excavate
spell, and charged the wolf pack after casting
stone armor
everywhere on his body except his hands and feet.

Most healers knew almost nothing of swordplay, but his best friend Sir James Neville, son of the baron of the Red Marshes had spent endless hours training him in their use. Recalling all the proper footwork and holding the two-handed weapon high, he charged the eight wolves. He killed the first three without trouble, but two more tore at his legs to bring him down. Without the
stone armor
spell, they would have overwhelmed him and torn out his throat. He increased his weight using a fairy spell to hold himself upright and continued his attack.

It took less than five minutes, and all eight wolves were dead, often severed in half by his sword’s incredible sharpness. Michael wondered if he was worthy of being Gripton’s Promise. He had failed to properly secure the camp. He had failed to hide the manna of the healers from Fay Woods thereby bringing two hundred knight protectors to the beach. The whole enterprise might have died if the wolves had gotten into his camp before he woke. He washed the blood off in the stream, dropped his
stone armor
spell, sheathed his sword and returned to the dome to have breakfast with the girls.

As he sat on a log to eat Isabelle’s porridge, she said, “Michael of Hearthshire, you’re not who you claim to be. By my count you killed eight wolves with a sword you weren’t carrying before you went after them, a sword that disappeared after you finished using it. You’ve done a lot of things that I’ve only heard of in ancient stories. Thank you for saving us, but you scare me.”

“I am truly Michael, a healer born in a village much like Azure Falls, but on the other side of the province. I trained under the master healer William in the city of Hearthshire Town. It is true I can do more spells than most healers, but I’m just a man with some extra skills, like a blacksmith or a cooper has special skills.”

Anna said, “You said you’d take us to a safe place, Black Sand Beach, where the naiads live, but you took us in the opposite direction into the foothills of the Mountains of Clouds. You look trustworthy, but are you really? My father always said to beware of strangers.”

“We’ll be in Black Sand Beach in less than an hour. I know a shortcut. Now that breakfast is over, let me take you there. That ramp leads down into a chamber built by the dwarves in the Dawn Time. You will both hold my hands and we’ll walk right through to another chamber. From there we’ll follow a tunnel, maybe a little bit scary, but it leads to about forty other healers who are waiting for ships that will take all of you to safety. Let’s do it as soon as I clean up the camp. I’ll be staying one or two days at Black Sand Beach before I travel to look for other healers.”

Michael cast a new
stone dome
spell with enough strength to last for five days. He refashioned the exit for the small stream so that bars of force would let the water out but also block any future attempt for animals or people to use it as an entrance. The horses had already consumed much of the grass in the camp, so he chopped the top from a fallen log and dug a feeding station using his elfish sword. He filled it with the last of his oats. He had every intention of returning for Black Dash and his packhorse Stalwart, but in case he could not, he wanted them free and healthy when the dome spell terminated.

Holding their hands, Michael led Isabelle and Anna down into the ramp, past the stone dwarves, and into the travel chamber. The girls were brave, but gave small gasps when the saw the stone dwarves. Saying the spell for transport to Black Sand Beach instantly took all three of them to another similar room. He led them through the tunnel to the refuge, and entered to an excited crowd of healers.

The healers were happy to see him and welcomed the girls; several of the women took them off for baths and sets of fresh clothes. Lady Agnes took Michael aside to explain what had happened in his absence. They reported that a cohort of two hundred priests and knight protectors had come searching for them but had not been able to find them in the hidden refuge that Michael had constructed. The churchmen had stayed for several days until a black dragon drove them away. Since they fled, a few of the senior healers had ventured out to inspect their former camp. Huge amounts of food and other supplies had been abandoned, and the healers had brought everything useful into their refuge. They had been taking turns in small groups to walk on the beach and get fresh air and exercise.

Michael asked Lady Agnes, Lady Marsha, Master Gwen, and Master Bradley, the four most senior healers present, to join him on the beach. As they walked along the beach, he explained what he had learned about the abduction of children by knight protectors. It seemed that the knight protectors were quite willing to kill the parents if they resisted.

“I don’t see anyway to prevent them from taking every youngster with manna,” Michael said. “I can’t be everywhere. It was just luck that I saved those two girls.”

Master Gwen replied, “If you can find where they are taking the youngsters to train them as healer priests, maybe you can free them all at once. I’d guess that there are fewer than twenty healers who discover their manna each year. We usually can’t detect their potential until they’re teenagers. Michael, you were an exception; we saw your manna when you were three. It was already the strongest we’d ever seen, and we suspected you might be the healer of Gripton’s promise even then.”

“I might be able to sneak into any school the high priests create, but how would I shepherd thirty kids to a place of safety? Even Isabelle and Anna were suspicious of me, and I rescued them from the men who killed their parents.

Bradley replied, “We have no idea how you’ll do it, but we have faith that you can. It’s your destiny to fix this mess and restore sanity to Glastamear.”

Michael felt totally inadequate to the task he confronted, but he saw no reason to share his doubts with the others. He was their best hope of returning to an active role as healers here on the mainland.

So far, Michael had feared traveling to the capital city of Min Hollow where the Great Mother Temple of Perry Ascendant sheltered many hundreds of priests and knight protectors. He knew that their power increased when they cast spells together. Could the Most Holy Son of Perry Ascendant casting with the support of his team of knight protectors and priests overcome any of the spells he’d already learned? He thought that was possible.

Everyone in Glastamear had heard reports that every year on Perry’s day, the Holy Son cast a spell at midnight that lit the whole city as it were daylight for the rest of the night. Michael had also heard that in times of great blizzards, they were able to cast a spell that kept the city of over four hundred thousand people warm until the storm passed. If those spells were the
torch
and
winter blanket
spells that he had learned, it was far beyond his power.

“Lady Agnes, Lady Marsha, Master Gwen, and Master Bradley, I can only do my best. Our fishing ships should be here within two weeks. You must travel on to safety. The greatest risk of the pogrom is that if too many of us are killed; the healing magic might be lost to mankind forever.”

Lady Agnes replied, “The healing trait does run in families. Almost every master healer had at least one grandparent who was a strong healer. You more than any of us must have children to pass on your power to the future generations. You know Diana is waiting for your return. Don’t wait too long.”

Michael blushed. “I’ll come after I search the Southport area and investigate Min Hollow. That’s only a couple of more months. If you see her before I do; tell her I miss her and will see her by spring.”

Agnes smiled in a motherly manner and said, “I could carry a letter to her and bring her reply when I come back. The answer would be here before you return.”

“I’d like that. I’ll write one tonight.”

“Michael, I don’t want to be pushy, but you could include a ring with the letter. I’m certain it would be welcome.”

“Lady Agnes, I didn’t take you for a matchmaker. However, I will look for the perfect ring to include. Diana and I are committed to each other; we both know that we’ll be married someday. Thank you.”

Before he left Black Sand Beach, Michael wanted to do something to help the naiads. He knew that they didn’t work metals; they took the metal objects they needed from humans, usually leaving a pearl in their place. He had learned many things from the dwarfish spell book including how to make metal tools with metals that human smiths had never refined. One such metal was lighter than iron and not as easily corroded by seawater. There was no human word for this metal, but he knew it was abundant in the seawater. The dwarfish name was just strange sounds, anodized aluminum. He could fashion it into tridents that didn’t rust and were lighter to carry. He also thought he could make some fishing nets that would last much longer than the ones the naiads fashioned from seaweed.

Michael walked down the to beach and sat on a rock near the remains of the knight protectors’ camp. He began the spells to pull the strange metal from the sand and seawater. In an hour, he had a mound of shiny silver metal pellets two paces high. Recalling the shape of Obert’s trident, Michael began to form similar shapes in the new metal. He worked for six hours and produced over a hundred of them. He added some decorations of fish and other sea life. It took more time to make the nets because of the detail, but by dark he had made thirty of them.

He reached out to Obert with mage thought-talk and let him know that presents were waiting for the naiads on the beach. Soon Obert and many other naiads were crowded around admiring the tridents and nets. Normally the naiads’ nets were floated with inflated swim bladders taken from a local type of fish, but Michael sat in the crowd of naiads and formed colorful glass balls with aluminum hooks on the bottom. He found he could make the glass any color or blend of colors that he wanted. None of the hundred and fifty floats he made were exactly the same blend of colors. The naiads took great joy in seeing each glass ball formed, guessing at what colors he would blend together in next ball. It was a fun time for all involved, and the naiads appreciated both the gifts and the entertainment.