On and on he walked through the pitch-black tunnel as it followed the bends in the road next to the frozen stream. After half an hour, he reached an open area of storage with a wooden turning wheel for wagons. He found a room for stabling horses with a large supply of hay, but there were no horses.
His dwarfish rock sense told him that this chamber was ten paces underground and had a layer of ice that was at least twice as thick above the surface rock. A wagon had been left next to a huge coal bin. The coal surprised him because fire mages did not normally use it for heating. Instead they heated large stone blocks with magic. The wagon had a harness for a single horse and two oil lanterns on either side of the driver’s seat. Behind a stout wooden door he found an abattoir for the preparation of meat and a hanging locker dug into a frozen crack in the rock surface that was loaded with frozen beef, pork, and horsemeat. There were other storage rooms for grain and for preserved and dried fruits and vegetables. Michael found vastly greater supplies than the forty knights and eighteen children would need for the winter, and he assumed the fortress was designed to hold many more men than its current complement.
Michael heard the screech of an iron-reinforced door being opened and ducked behind a side of beef in the meat locker. He was invisible, but the air was so cold his breath was visible each time he exhaled. Michael held his breath. A man dressed in a quilted blue robe with the insignia of the knight protectors embroidered over the heart entered the room and took the side of beef nearest the door. He hefted it onto his powerful shoulder and left the room. Michael heard the screech of the door being closed and decided he needed more information about the Winnowing Castle before creating a plan to rescue the children.
Chapter 22
Michael thought about the danger and the difficulty of escape if he was noticed within the castle. Even if he escaped, being detected would let the knights know their secret fortress had been discovered. He grinned and followed the knight anyway. A side passage though a locked door led directly under the castle. He stayed about two turns behind the knight who carried the side of beef as he ascended the spiral stone staircase. After a steep climb, Michael reached the top of the stairs and followed the knight toward a kitchen area. Michael smelled the food and heard the kitchen workers talking, but it was not his objective. He was searching for the healer children, and he continued up another spiral stairway until it was about half way up the central tower to the level where the children were housed. There were a score of knights’ manna signs on this level. It seemed to be the most occupied part of the enormous castle.
Michael watched the movement of all the fire mages by using detect all manna. He dodged into closets, took side passageways to avoid the knights, and at times just stood completely still and tried not to breathe as they passed. He moved slowly always keeping the children’s manna in sight and working his way towards it. After half an hour of exploration, he found a locked door. Behind that door were both the children and four knight protectors.
Michael had learned the forest magic spell forest vapor while he studied with the Fairy Folk of Fay Woods. The spell allowed fairies to pass through even the smallest crack because it reduced their forms to unsubstantiated vapors. He had never used the spell except when entering the fairies’ barrow. It had the disadvantage of being a vapor; he could carry nothing and could not interact with the real world except by forest magic. He found an empty barrel. He stood in it so that his black traveling clothing would fall into it when he transformed. He became a vapor floating near the ceiling. His awareness of his surroundings was strange as if he were looking at the world from another place or time.
After passing through the crack between the door and its frame, Michael floated as a transparent and unsubstantial ghost observing a classroom. The windowless chamber had two rows of small chairs occupied by the eighteen youngsters. Along the back wall were stacked cages holding small animals, mostly small dogs, but also ferrets, foxes, rodents, ducks, and chickens. Two knights sat in padded chairs at the back of the room observing as a small boy, no older than seven, tried a healing spell on a small white dog. There were two teachers in the front of the room giving instructions. They had written the ancient Elfish words for clear lungs and healing hands on a slate board.
Michael drifted into an adjoining room that had rows of bunk beds stacked three high along the walls and a short table with eighteen small chairs in the middle. Michael assumed that the children would be confined to these two rooms and a nearby bathroom. If his assumption were true, he would know where he would find the children when the time came to get them out of the castle. He noticed on the night tables next to some of the beds were a few stuffed unicorns, the most common toy for children in Glastamear. Other tables held toy swords imitating those two handed blades carried by the knights. He also saw toy replicas of knight protectors cast in lead and painted silver and blue.
As far as Michael could tell in his brief visit, the children were not being mistreated, but he knew that many of them had been taken by force from their parents. Parents who resisted had been killed. He was anxious to remove the children before they were fully indoctrinated by the knights. Most of them had already been here for two or three months, and Michael worried it might be too late for some. If they had been abused, it might have been easier to persuade them to escape, but at this point, he was uncertain how to get them to leave with him when the time came to depart.
While Michael was drifting near the ceiling of the dormitory room trying to decide how he could get the children to safety, two knights came in through a side door and placed eighteen bowls of stew on the table in the center of the room. One of the knights was the same man who he’d seen retrieving the beef from the storage room. They talked as they placed the bowls. He assumed that the side door through which they’d entered led to another stairway connected to the kitchens. He needed to discover if it was an easier way of reaching the children’s quarters without passing though so many of the rooms occupied by knight protectors. Without some shortcut, their exit would be impossible without the children being discovered.
The man who retrieved the side of beef said, “I don’t see why we need to coddle these spoiled brats. They should have been killed with the rest of the healers.”
“Our order needs healing magic, but only the type of healing magic we can control. These brats can learn that type of magic, and we can’t.”
“They hate our guts. I’d never trust one to cast spells on me.”
“Many of them lost their parents. It will take time to forget their loss.”
“Perry’s Balls, they didn’t lose parents as if they might find them again. In most cases, we killed their parents when be took them. They’d all murder us at their first opportunity or maybe turn us into worms or something revolting if they knew any such spells. I say they need a lot more discipline. The teachers never use those studded straps for punishment that were used on us as apprentices; they use the smooth leather ones on these little brats. I learned a lot from those studded ones when I was an apprentice.”
“You learned how to bandage a bloody ass and not much else. Don’t ever let the commander hear you say anything about these children or you’ll visit the catapult on top of the High Tower. This is his special project. That’s why he’s spending the winter here.”
They exited through the side door, and Michael followed them. He discovered a direct route from the kitchen to the dormitory, a much easier and shorter route than the complicated way he’d taken to find the children. He drifted back up to check on the children’s room, and soon after, the apprentice healers entered through the door to their schoolroom.
A little blonde girl with curly hair was crying. She spoke to a nearby boy, “Why did they kill the puppy? He was so cute and they hurt him.”
“Grendel, Marko was supposed to heal it, but he couldn’t.”
She ran over and hugged one of the stuffed unicorn dolls still crying. Looking at the doll, she said, “Robbie, you won’t let them
hurt me will you?”
Michael reacted almost instantly. He used mage thought-talk, one of the few magic tools available to him in his disembodied state.
“Don’t worry Grendel, I’ll come for you soon and get you and your friends out of this castle. We’ll go someplace much nicer. You’ll see. In about a week, we’ll go someplace better.”
Grendel seemed surprised that Robbie had actually answered. “Are unicorns real?” she said out loud.
A boy named Nathan was nearby. He heard Grendel’s question and said, “It is just old threadbare cloth stuffed with cotton. There are no real unicorns.”
Michael thought to him, “Nathan, do not make fun of what you don’t understand. When the time comes, you must follow the unicorn down into the tunnel below the castle. We’ll go someplace much nicer.”
Nathan looked at the unicorn doll in Grendel’s arms and asked, “Did you really say that, Robbie?”
“Yes Nathan. Tell the other children to follow the unicorn when it comes in about a week. We’ll leave this place of fire mages and go somewhere better.”
Nathan put his hand on the unicorn’s head while it was still in Grendel’s arms and said, “Yes, I’ll tell the others Robbie. I hate this place where they kill puppies, but Robbie, my parents are dead. I have no place else to go.”
“Nathan, there is a better school where no one kills puppies and the teachers actually know healing magic. It’s on an island far from these evil knights. I’ll come for you in a week. Tell the others. I need to leave now, but I’ll be back.”
Michael sent a mage thought to all of the children. It said simply, “Watch for the unicorn in a week. Nathan and Grendel know that I’ll come for you.” He saw the children looking around to find the source of the mental message as he drifted through the doorway and the schoolroom, back to the barrel where he’d dropped his clothing. He converted to his normal form, dressed, cast transparency, and found his way through the maze of rooms to the spiral staircase that led towards the underground entrance.”
He had two close calls when knights walked within a few hands width of him, but he escaped the Winnowing Castle without being noticed by a single knight protector. He now had the beginnings of a plan.
Once he left the tunnel and converted back to an eagle, he flew along the snow-covered road that was the only path to the tunnel entrance, He circled and followed the route until he was certain he could find the road that led to the knights’ mountain stronghold from the flat snowfields between Crow Crossing and the castle.
Chapter 23
In the morning, Michael was discussing his rescue plan with his friends in his room at the Crow’s Nest Inn.
Jim said, “Since you can suppress their fire magic, surely you should do that before entering the Winnowing Castle again.”
“If I suppress fire magic before we get the children, the knights would figure out something is wrong and be on the alert. They use their fire magic to heat stones in their rooms for warmth and to cook in their kitchens. They even use spells to light lamps. If anyone tries a cast that doesn’t work, I think all forty of them will stop me from getting the children out even if they can’t see me or use fire magic. I have no way to protect that many youngsters all at the same time from well trained knights.”
Gregory said, “At least you should make the children invisible and hide their manna.”
“I’m afraid that some might fall down those steep stone stairs if they can’t see their own bodies. Invisibility is difficult for everyone at first.”
“Michael, I still don’t think this plan will work,” Roger said. “The knights will detect their manna signs moving down the stairs, or if you give them rings to suppress their manna, they’ll see the healer manna disappear.”
Jim said, “We can’t just wait for you outside the tunnel with the sleigh. We need to be ready to protect your retreat if they figure out the children are moving down to the tunnel.”
Michael said, “My mind is tired and I’m famished. Let’s talk about this some more after breakfast. Jim, I think you’re right. It would be safest if one man remained with the sleigh and the rest of you waited near the wagon. You could put the children in the wagon, and I could pull it through the tunnel in my unicorn form. Unicorns can run extremely fast when necessary. I can suppress the knights’ fire manna if they discover the escape before we get through the tunnel, but that’s a spell that I don’t really want them to understand. Most people think the loss of fire magic in the temples is Perry’s judgment against cowardly knights and priests who hid in their temples during the epidemic. I’d like to keep everyone believing that.”
They all started downstairs to the common room for breakfast. Michael commented, “Roger you are also correct about the possibility of the knights detecting the children’s manna descending the stairway to the kitchen or later to the tunnel. However, detect all manna is a spell you need to cast; it’s not on at all times. I can’t see a reason for any of them to cast it until they realize there’s a problem. Once in the tunnel, we can distribute rings that hide their manna.”
After they enjoyed a hearty breakfast of barley bread, goose egg omelets with salt ham, oat porridge, and mugs of winter tea, they resumed their conversation once the common room was empty.
Jacob said, “Eighteen kids and six large men will fit in the sleigh, but we’ll be crushed together for at least ten days on the trip to Black Sand Beach. The kids will be too restless after a few hours; the trip will be awful for them.”
Gregory said, “Well there are no snow-elk for sale anywhere around here. They don’t normally have this much snow at Crow Crossroads. We’d need to go all the way to the villages of the White Plains to get more sleighs and elk.”
Michael said, “I agree. One sleigh will hold us all, but the trip would be a nightmare for the kids. The innkeeper mentioned that he saw snow-elk several times each winter because they have two sleighs and two snow-elk teams at the Castle Gateway. Maybe we could borrow them - without asking.”
Jim laughed and said, “Michael, you become more of a sneak thief every month.”
“So you don’t approve Jim?”
“You can’t drive both sleighs; I’ll be right there with you.”
Michael chuckled. “I’ll leave a bag of gold crowns in their place. Sort of a purchase without asking the seller.”
Peter said, “Seriously, you can’t bring them into Crows Crossroads without them being recognized. They’re currently being used for freight, and we’ll need to make them more confortable for a ten day trip.”
Michael tossed Peter a bag of gold coins. “Peter, you’re in charge of buying everything we’ll need for the trip and loading our current sleigh with it. Jim and I will go for the other two sleighs tomorrow. We’ll meet along the way to the Winnowing Castle and do the conversions. One of the sleighs should be enclosed as a schoolhouse and playroom for the children and another converted for sleeping with mattresses on the floor and hammocks for the adults.”
Michael turned to his friend Roger. “You’re a fine healer and a very patient man. You should plan lessons for the children while we’re traveling. It’s best to keep them busy. Remember these children are five or more years younger than the Healers’ Guild would have taken on as apprentices. The guild would have left them with their parents until fourteen or fifteen. I was a weird exception because the Healers’ Guild sent a teacher to live with my family, but I still didn’t actually leave home until I was fifteen.”
Jim said, “If their parents are still alive, we need to do something to reunited them.”
The others all agreed. They were busy that day with purchasing the needed supplies for their trip. It was impossible to find everything in such a small town, and they soon realized they would need to shop farther away. Food was scarce in Crow Crossroads and the things they needed for the conversions of the sleighs were not all available.
Michael contacted Diana in Southport through mage thought-talk and let her know what they would ne
ed. That night Michael converted to an eagle and few all the way to Southport, pleasing Diana with this unexpected visit. It was in the late afternoon when he finally reached the southern city after his very long flight. After spending time together, Diana went to the main market square for some additional goods to keep the kids occupied on their ten-day trip across the northern snow. Diana had suggested that they buy toys, games, and illustrated children’s books. She also purchased ten unicorn dolls.
Diana already had arranged for the other supplies to be moved to an unoccupied beach near the city. Everything rested on a pallet so Michael could fly it back to Crow Crossroads by using a cast of alter weight to carry the heavy cargo in the claws of a Giant Ki Eagle. Around sunset, he kissed Diana goodbye, retrieved the supplies, and took off for Crow Crossroads.
Michael left the cargo pallet in a dense stand of white-bark trees about half way between Crow Crossing and Winnowing Castle. Once he returned to the inn, he set everyone in motion. Jim and he would walk in snowshoes to the Castle Gateway fortress. Michael enchanted rings with warm blanket for everyone, and submerge manna for all eighteen youngsters. The Oxbow brothers headed off to get the sleigh. They would follow a map that Michael made for them to the rendezvous. The plan was for them to begin converting their current sleigh to a sleeping one as soon as they reached the supplies. It was the task that would take the longest. Jim and Michael would follow once they had appropriated the sleighs from Castle Gateway.
Michael and Jim headed out of town on snowshoes for the ten thousand paces trip to the fortress that guarded the only road from Glastamear into the great city of Min Hollow. It was windy and cold, and they thought another snowstorm was on the way. They talked along the way about the future of Glastamear and about rebuilding the Healers’ Guild as they walked. After an hour, the wind was blowing too hard to carry on a conversation easily.
The Mages' Winter of Death: The Healers of Glastamear: Volume Two Page 16
