The Pogrom of Mages: The Healers of Glastamear: Volume One (2 page)

Chapter 3

Michael leaped to his feet when he noticed a corkscrew orange glow moving toward his resting spot. His heart raced. It was the fabled no-step cobra, the most dangerous serpent in the whole kingdom. Villagers who lived near the swamp called them no-step because if you stepped on one, that was certainly your last step before the grave.

Michael knew the truth was even more horrible because he had read a study by an old kingdom’s healer regarding the nature of the cobra’s toxin. The cobra’s bite produced the appearance of death, but life could hang on in a sort of suspended state for many days while the cobra feasted on the blood of its victim. The
detect life
spell had saved him because even with enhanced night vision he couldn’t see the moving death approaching except for its life glow. He hoped the knights chasing him would miss sight of it until too late, but unless they were unlucky, their armor would probably protect their legs from its bite.

He couldn’t make good time through the tangle of the Great Black Thicket. Once, he had to pause to let a pack of king wolves pass, and he zigzagged to avoid a myriad other dangers; he couldn’t cross the streams anywhere near the many crocodiles. He was no longer even certain of his direction of travel with all four moons hidden by clouds and no constellations visible, but he could hear the knights getting closer.

He cast as powerful a version of
detect all manna
as he was capable, and their location was quickly revealed as less than two hundred yards away. There were only three manna glows. Either one knight had died or been left behind. It really didn’t matter. Michael had no weapon but a food knife, and they were armored professional soldiers as well as mages who probably knew fire magic and other proscribed spells.

As he turned to run, he noticed a concentration of manna glows ahead, more than a dozen, and some were much brighter than his pursuers’ manna. It would soon be time for
heart stop
. He would never evade a dozen additional knight protectors who had somehow gotten ahead of him.

“Elf-Blood, if you wish to survive, you must lead them to us; fire mages can’t see our manna. We can hide and protect you.” The thought came into his mind as clearly as spoken words. It was the mage thought-talk of legend, which most modern healers considered merely a myth created by storytellers or perhaps a skill lost in the old kingdom days. The words seemed to be the voice of a young woman, a seductive tone. If it was a trick, he still should have time to cast
heart stop
. He never expected to leave the Great Black Thicket alive in any case so why not take the chance of help.

He led the three knights on a long winding route to avoid the many hazards of the swamp, always coming back to a heading leading towards the manna glows ahead. He paused as the knights encountered a crocodile. The ten-minute fight gave him another break to rest. He was young and strong, but he had never worked in the fields or done other strenuous labor. His lack of stamina and the oppressive humidity was slowing him down until he feared the knights would reach him before he made it to the possible help ahead. He tossed his leather jerking and gloves aside so the rain could cool his chest and arms.

They almost had him now; as the dawn came they could see him clearly as he dashed between bog cedars and dodged trees with dropping serpents. The knights shouted that he must stop in the name of Perry Ascendant or be forever damned to the seventh hell of perpetual fire. They yelled obscenities that he had never heard from churchmen. As they cursed him, he felt lucky that they had left their bows with their horses and that they had to physically catch up with him to stop him.

Foolish young man he thought as the fire blast from the leading knight’s fingers scorched his hair and just missed immolating his head. They were either too mad at being led through this dangerous bog, or thought he was too unimportant to be taken alive.

He didn’t know how to project his thoughts to the mage who had contacted him, but he kept repeating, “they shoot fire from their fingers” over and over in hopes of warning the mage who had thought-talked to him.

The thought formed, “We are water people; they can’t harm us. You’re close now Elf-Blood.” The mental voice was as calm as a chat at dinnertime, as unworried as a child at play, and also as seductive as the calls from the women in the windows of the House of Joy.

Michael stumbled into a clearing. The swamp smell was replaced by the smell of the sea and he heard the sound of breakers in the distance. Two-dozen human-like figures stood unconcerned watching the chase. A young woman, she was certainly a young female at least, smiled and moved towards him. She, like all the others in the clearing, was nude, and she had no hair at all. Her pale aqua blue skin glistened in the dawn light, and she had gill slits in her neck.

The beautiful naiad reached out and touched him gently with her right hand. They all vanished, he could not even see his own hands, but he could still feel her cool fingers resting on his shoulder. She giggled girlishly and used her magic to create the tracks of a great crocodile in the sandy wet soil. She marked the area where he had entered the clearing with the signs of struggle and of a crocodile’s meal.

Within thirty seconds, three fully armored knights entered the clearing.

“Good Perry Ascendant! Even his manna is gone. No vanishing spell can conceal manna that strong that completely. We should be able to detect him anywhere within two thousand paces.”

“He’s dead; curse him to the everlasting fire. See where that huge croc must have got him. It’s surely too quick a death for a heretic, but there’s no help for that. Let’s get the hell out of here and report he died in the swamp.”

The third knight said as if to convince himself, “He was only an apprentice, he can’t know enough to even do a basic vanishing spell, and nothing conceals manna from
Perry’s Eye
. It’s sacrilege to think otherwise. He must be dead even if we can’t recover any of his body parts. The high priest will still be pissed; he wanted to put him to the question. His level of manna was extraordinary, and the clergy wanted to understand how that happened before they let him die. ”

The naiads waited until the manna glow of the knights was more than a thousand paces away before they reappeared, but the young woman kept her hand on Michael’s shoulder to conceal his manna from the departing knight protectors.

Chapter 4

“I’m Arianna, and you sir are no elf,” the beautiful naiad whispered into his left ear.

“My name is Michael, and I’m just an apprentice healer from Hearthshire Town. I didn’t know the Elfish Clan still existed in Glastamear. Why on earth were you expecting an elf?”

“Oh, the elves left Glastamear at the start of the old kingdom, two thousand years ago, but they come sometimes from across the great ocean to see how their children fare. At first we thought you an elf coming for a visit because you have elfish manna. The manna of elves is never exhausted by use, just like yours. You could cast a thousand spells in an hour and not run out.”

A glance at the now visible naiads spread on the ground around the sandy clearing forced an unintended gasp from Michael. They were all coupling, or whatever the correct word was for sex in groups of two to six. They were doing things that had never occurred to Megan or him in combinations of male and female that would have produced a scarlet blush if his face had been visible.

Arianna laughed. “Surely you’ve heard that naiads are always horny. I’m afraid it’s too true. Our males only produce one seed at a time, and it takes thousands of copulations before you have reasonable odds of producing children. In that way, we’re like our common ancestors the elves and their other children such as the dwarves, fairies, leprechauns, gnomes, and such – that is all of their children except humans who breed like rabbits, but die as quick as mayflies.”

Michael was speechless as Arianna reached her left hand down to his crotch and whispered, “Always horny.”

Half an hour later Arianna whispered, “My, that was fun, but before we can go back to our beach, I must see if you can learn some water magic. Your manna is so strong that you’ll be a beacon for any fire mage looking for healers. The high priest in Westport City could probably detect you from there.”

“I can’t do anything but healing magic.”

Arianna ran her fingers through his hair and said, “This ape hair feels quite strange, but except for it you’re almost like us. I do understand human mages can normally only perform one school of magic. If they commit to one form like your healing magic, it’s for life. Naiads can only do water magic, dwarves only earth magic, fairies only forest magic, and so on. Only dragons and elves can do all forms of magic, but I think you’re much closer to an elf than a human in your power.”

She taught him the words he needed for
submerge manna
. He said it several times in mage-tongue until she was ready to remove her hand for an instant to test his success.

The water magic worked.

“See, I told you, you’re an elf inside, and you’re almost a naiad in horniness I see.” Laughing, she also taught him
transparency
so he could disappear as the naiads had when the knights were nearby. She taught him
water breath
so he could hold his breath underwater for up to fifteen minutes without distress. She taught him
shell skin
so the insects and snakes couldn’t bite, and
no stink
so his human odor would disappear.

“You’ll need to repeat the
submerge manna
spell every week or so. For us, the
transparency
spell will last about an hour, maybe longer for you with your enormous manna.”

Several of the naiads took tridents from where they had left them concealed in the bushes, and the group moved off toward the sound of surf. They soon reached a palm-studded black-sand beach. The surf broke over a reef only a hundred paces from shore, a reef that would discourage any human boats from trying to come ashore and thereby ensure the naiads privacy.

As they walked half a mile along the beach, some naiads dove into the sea and returned with shellfish, sea bass, and crabs. The group, which Arianna referred to as the Black Sand Beach Pod, stopped to rest in a palm grove and spread out their catch among the fallen coconuts to prepare for a feast.

Arianna sat beside him and commented, “We know nothing of fire. I don’t know what you can eat without burning it. Please choose whatever you can eat as we have no other food, and you need to regain your strength.”

After the repast, the naiads resumed their attempt to create little naiads, and Michael dozed in the shade too tired to take part. He woke as a song began; marvelous melodious sound filled the palm grove like the hymn of Perry’s archangels and like the summer’s wind and the gentle surf of autumn.

Although he understood much of the old-elf language, mage-thought brought him instant translation of different version of the ancient tale.

Their song was
Reel of Passage
, the story of the trip from the yellow star of terra to the bright blue giant sun of Blue Haven, the sun that rose each day above his home kingdom of Glastamear on the planet of Home. It sung of the thousand-year voyage though the lonely emptiness between worlds. Michael’s heart nearly broke from lonesomeness at his loss of William and the loss of all contact with Megan and all the people he had known before the pogrom began; friends he could never see again lest they be put to death as heretics. Tears clouded his eyes, and Arianna noticed and hugged him close as she continued her song.

The great song told of the elves’ creation magic, which allowed them to adjust their own seed to give birth to the many different types of magical beings of Glastamear including the naiads.

The tone of the song began to change as the elves made the enormous mistake, the great tragic mistake of all history, the creation of men. For in men they overcame the problem of too few births to populate this continent of their new world. Each man had a million seeds and women could produce a child each year. The newcomers grew in population and filled the continent with their kingdoms, but also with their endless wars and conflicts and their constant thirst for land and power.

The elves had given each race its own form of magic so they might prosper in this new land. To the dwarves they gave earth magic, to the fairies they gave forest magic, to the naiads they gave water magic, and to the humans they gave healing magic because only the humans had the weakness of contagious sickness and short lifespans.

In the human version of the
Reel of Passage
, mankind was the elves’ greatest creation, and blessed by Perry Ascendant to rule over all of nature and have dominion over the world of Home under the sun of Blue Haven.

The naiads’ song had a different end.

Seeing the terrible error of mankind, the elves did not have the heart to destroy their human children. They decided to begin again on a new continent far across the western sea. They took any of their other kindred who wanted to leave and sailed away. A few of the dwarves stayed behind because the humans did not bother them in their home below the surface. Some of the fairies thought the humans would never bother them deep in their primeval forests. The naiads didn’t fear the humans because they lived in the tideland and ate freely of the sea and almost never saw a human.

So the greatest song of Blue Haven ended in sadness as the elves abandoned their troublesome human children to live happily with their other offspring far across the great western waters in the sunset lands on the continent of New Paradise.