The Pogrom of Mages: The Healers of Glastamear: Volume One

by Charles Williamson

  The Pogrom of Mages

  The Healers of Glastamear Volume One

  By Charles deMontel Williamson

  This is a work of fantasy fiction. Similarities between its characters and any real people are a coincidence.

  Please respect the author by using this work only for your personal enjoyment.

  This book is dedicated to my stepson, Brad, may you never lose the wonder of fantasy, and may the force always be with you!

  Chapter 1

  Michael touched the moist neck of his winded hunting mare. The energy from his healing hand spell would ease her pain, but it would not keep his stolen horse from collapsing in exhaustion after fifteen hours of racing to escape the four knights that were pursuing him. As fast-moving storm clouds covered the setting sun, and the fetid odor of the rain-soaked ground mixed with the scent of his wet and exhausted horse, a hot rain began to fall.

  The tangled growth of the Great Black Thicket closed in on either side of the game trail he had followed for the past four thousand paces; a tangle of vines overhung the narrow passage causing him to duck every few yards. He slapped at the biting flies around his face as he searched for a place to abandon his failing horse and crawl into the tangle of the most dangerous swamp in the whole Kingdom of Glastamear.

  Even when he attempted this desperate gamble to cross the Great Black Thicket, he knew the four knight protectors of the Church of Perry Ascendant would follow. The new king had decreed that every resident of Glastamear who possessed any powers of magic, even the most basic healing arts, must be expunged from the fellowship of mankind by the death proscribed for heretics in Sacred Text of Perry.

  That royal command required that every mage, even a mere apprentice healer like Michael was to be flayed alive and burned at the stake on a slow fire. His teacher and mentor, William the Healer of Hearthshire Town, had died five days earlier. Michael had only escaped because he had been in the woods gathering ginger root and nightshade when the edict reached Hearthshire Town. He had concluded it was better to chance being devoured by the crocodiles, pythons, or king wolves of the Great Black Thicket than to face the death these knights planned for him. If he could reach the unpopulated coast of Black Sand Beach, he would at least have a place to hide and think about his next move.

  The previous night he had overheard three men discussing the pogrom on healers outside the stable where he’d stolen the mare. Great King Justin’s court healer had been accused of killing the king and all of his immediate family as well as hundreds of courtiers, knights, and their ladies by adding kneelwood poison to the kings Perry-Night feast. It was said he used healing magic to prevent the royal tasters from being affected by the poisoned squab pies.

  The new King, Richard of Ashtree Ford, was a nephew and the closest heir to have been absent from the lethal feast. It was this new king, now called Richard the Vengeful, who had decreed that even the healing magic, which the Church of Perry Ascendant had always allowed, was now heretical and a capital crime. The fact that Michael was only a nineteen-year-old fourth-year apprentice was no reprieve.

  A sudden movement overhead, a many-toothed mouth struck at the mare’s head, and Michael was thrown from the horse as the camouflage python struck. The stolen mare was down with the sixteen-inch thick coils of a brown and green snake encircling her forequarters. Even with his wind knocked by his tumble, Michael struggled to rise. He knew over six hundred healing spells, but none of them would kill the massive serpent or save this stolen mount. He touched her hindquarter whispering the ease of passing spell and the mare slipped into unconsciousness and stopped her futile struggle

  Michael moved away from the dying mare. Although it was sweltering, he covered his bare chest with his leather jerkin and put on long thick gloves as protection from the thorns and stingers. He ate a slice of his stolen cheese to give his exhausted body some strength and then discarded the rest of the cheese wheel. Its strong odor might attract the attention of some hungry creature of the swamp. The time had come to leave the trail.

  He had no proper plan. No place in Glastamear would offer safety because King Richard’s decree made heretic any citizen who provided aid to a fleeing healer. He must forego any contact with others. He couldn’t go to his home village without endangering his friends, and since brigands had murdered his parents two years earlier, he had no close family.

  His only advantage was that he had been six weeks from finishing his apprenticeship and receiving the symbol of Perry Ascendant on his forehead that would have marked him as a true Healer. Someday, perhaps, he could take ship and flee the kingdom, but he knew that the power of the church extended into all the nearby lands as well. Perhaps healers were in danger everyplace within his reach, and there was no succor but in the belly of a swamp beast. In the far distance he heard the cussing of four ill-tempered knights.

  Chapter 2

  Michael had only learned spells to heal and help. He couldn’t throw fire bolts like mages of old. He had no touch of death spell or flaming sword spell like the tales of the bards described. He cast night surgery, and his pupils opened to their widest diameter and endorphin flooded the vision center of his brain. The dusk became as daylight. He cast detect life, and gasped in fear as every animal within a hundred paces began to glow with the orange halo of all living animals. The huge log in the pool twenty feet ahead was no true log, drop serpents hung from a dozen branches, and red-mouth poison newts lurked in every waterway. No unarmed person could live ten minutes crossing the Great Black Thicket on foot without mage sight.

  Watching every step he picked his way, weaving like a drunken smith through the treacherous bog. He was half a mile from the game trail when he cast hear the heart mummer and listened for the knight protectors. First he heard the clank of armor and a curse, but he could not locate the knights from their slight noises, which bounced through the dense stand of bogwood trees and snarl vines. He could not separate the knights’ sounds from the myriad closer sounds of insects and animals until a single word spoken loud enough to cause him to freeze and gasp. It was the word in the ancient mage-tongue that he had used to invoke the night surgery spell. The knight protectors of the Church of Perry Ascendant were also mages; they too could see in the dim light of the rainy night. His hope to make progress while they waited for daybreak was lost.

  Michael knew that if they had enough manna for that basic vision spell, they would cast detect all manna and pinpoint his exact location if they got close. Detect all manna was a secret spell that no healer should know existed. It revealed the manna, the magic reservoir, within any mage. It was a spell he had learned by accident when he found the elf-tongue invoking word written in the margin of a dusty volume in his mentor’s library.

  Michael had been completely ignorant of the spell’s danger when he cast it at the High Temple at Hearthshire Town. He was merely trying to locate Megan, an apprentice healer from a nearby village, the only girl he really fancied. He expected her to show the only manna in the crowd. The revelation had hammered him, and he had nearly run from the temple. A third of the priests of Perry Ascendant had manna; all of the temple knights had even more manna. The high priest, who was performing the holy sacrament of Bringing Forth Perry’s Fire, flamed with manna brighter that all the rest of the clergy and guards combined. The most sacred and holy ritual of the One True Church of Perry Ascendant was forbidden fire magic called forth by a powerful mage.

  He had recited the calm soul spell, a proper one to use at a temple service and waited in stunned silence. When the holy service was completed and Perry’s Fire floated above the crowd provi
ding divine blue light to the whole interior of the Great Temple, he had gone immediately home to ask his mentor William about his discovery. Were all the miracles of the holy Church merely proscribed mage’s fire magic?

  His mentor, William, had listened to his account with obvious alarm, and he spoke a single word in the mage-tongue. His mentor’s spell rendered Michael mute. Not only could he speak no words, even the sounds of his coughs and sneezes were gone.

  “Michael, you’re like a son to me, but I fear you’ve killed us both. Go to your room and remain there until either the knight protectors or I come for you. If they take me, I will use heart stop on myself, but you have no defense except complete silence.”

  Fear, a cold sweat and a trembling fear he had never known, began with those words; Michael, like everyone in the Kingdom of Glastamear, knew that no one who was taken by the knight protectors ever failed to confess and to implicate others. It was said they had the power to lay Perry’s Fire on the suspect, which would feel like a being consumed in a heretic’s configuration without ever charring or killing. The suspect could be burned alive time after time until the wretches said whatever was require to reach a final death. It was also rumored that pain spells had no impact on Perry’s Fire.

  On his way to his room Michael had gone to his mentor’s library and taken six of the most advanced tomes. He hoped to find the heart stop spell William had mentioned. His inability to speak would prevent him from implicating the innocent, but it would not keep him from suffering Perry’s Fire.

  He spent the next three days waiting for the knight protectors and reading the advanced tomes that William had not yet used for his training. The housekeeper did not come with food, the chambermaid did not change the chamber pot, and it was only by putting a bowl on the windowsill to catch rain that he had water. Since he heard no sounds about the large house, he assumed that William had sent everyone away and was taking no one seeking healing into his clinic rooms.

  On the third morning, William entered. He brought some salt beef, stale bread, and a large beaker of beer. He spoke the word to remove the spell of silence.

  “You have escaped the church’s notice my boy, but knowledge of the church’s magic is death; you must drive the information from your mind.”

  He had smiled and said, “It pays to be lucky. Since the high priest was invoking holy sacrament of Bringing Forth Perry’s Fire exactly as you cast, your small detect manna spell was not noticed. Many priests and all church knights can detect manna being used by any healer. That’s how they catch all those hedge witches and unsanctioned village healers. The more powerful your manna and the more powerful your spell, the more certain they are to detect you. Since you have the most powerful total level of manna that anyone in the Healers’ Guild has every encountered, every move you make can be followed by the temple from two thousand paces away. Your extraordinary level of manna is why the Guild provided for your childhood teachers and signed an apprenticeship agreement with your parents when you were only four.”

  Michael nodded. He had always understood that the Healers’ Guild wanted him. They had even purchased a larger house for his parents when he was five so that there would be a bedroom for the succession of teachers they provided.

  “Master William, doesn’t the Sacred Text of Perry specifically proscribe all fire, earth, water, forest, and lightning magic? How could the high priest be using fire magic right in the temple? Why didn’t Perry Ascendant strike him dead on the spot?”

  “My son, you already know the answer, but even here I dare not say it. Words have echoes that carry through all time. This is not a fit topic. I see you have used your time for study. What have you learned?”

  “I now know heart stop in case of need. I have learned cancer reach but of course haven’t had a chance to try putting my hand through skin to grab a tumor. Maybe a dozen other spells that I have not been able to try on practice animals yet, as well as a few other possibly useful things.”

  Michael paused under a huge bogwood tree sheltering from driving rain and trying to catch his breath. He remembered his three-day confinement and decided knowing heart stop was a comfort, perhaps the most important spell he knew. He recalled his mentor William with great affection and was glad he’d been able to use heart stop before the flaying had begun.

  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.”