The Mages' Winter of Death: The Healers of Glastamear: Volume Two (12 page)

Chapter 17

As Michael flew over Black Sand Beach in his form of a giant eagle, he saw that the
Silver Trident
was already anchored inside the reef in which the naiads made their homes. Since the dangerous reef was the location of frequent shipwrecks, the naiads must have towed the cargo ship into the still waters of the bay. The ship was the same one he’d purchased to take cargo to Dragon Crag, the islands where the Southport healers had been exiled.

Diana had been smart to send this specific ship. It was crewed by three healers, Jake, David, and Marin who already knew of Michael’s elf-like powers. Since they had already seen even more extraordinary things, the fact he could still the largest wave and keep the whole ship as warm as a summer’s day would not seem too surprising for them.

He landed on the cliff near the dwarfish travel room, in which through dwarfish magic from ancient times, Michael was able to travel to other rooms in different parts of Glastamear. He transformed, dressed, and followed the tunnel that led from the travel room to the underground accommodations that he’d created for hiding healers until they could move on to Rock Point on Mitchell Island, the western most location in the whole kingdom. Rock Point was the safe location in which the Healers’ Guild was rebuilding.

When he entered the common room, Jim and the Oxbow brothers greeted him. Lady Agnes hugged him and said it was a noble thing for them to return to heal in the inland cities where so many of their friends had died.

“Michael, forgiveness and generosity of spirit usually benefit the forgiver more than the forgiven. It is a noble thing you’re doing for the same citizens who watched so many healers murdered in the town squares. You have let go of your hate, and I hope the rest of us can as well.”

“Thank you. I think of William’s training when my temper gets the better of me. I’ve seen things that are difficult to set aside. How soon can we sail, my lady?”

“Our personal things are already onboard. The tide will be favorable for crossing the reef within the hour. Let’s go. We will have many days to catch up on news as we sail north.”

Diana had sent along a healer from Southport to lead their horses from Black Sand Beach, where there was no safe place for horses to stable, to the town of Marigold Meadows. The plan was for Michael and his friends to retrieve their warhorses and Michael’s favorite, Black Dash, before they returned to Southport Province.

At high tide when both Father Moon and Cousin Moon were in the sky, the naiads towed the cargo ship through the treacherous reef. The supply ship set sail and headed north. Michael enchanted a gold ring with the powerful fire mage’s spell of
warm blanket.
It raised the temperature of the whole ship to comfortably warm from icy cold. Next he enchanted a golden amulet with a spell the naiads taught him,
still waters.
The man-high waves that had been violently rocking the cargo ship stilled. It was calm seas for about two hundred paces in all directions. The waves seemed to break over an invisible wall in a circle around the
Silver Trident
.

Jake of Conch Cove who was piloting the ship remarked, “Michael, I don’t know what you’ve done, but this is like a nice summer cruise down to the Walker Islands rather than a death defying trip to someplace near Snowport. When Lady Barbara asked us to sail to Sand Point in the middle of winter, we all thought she had been inhaling smoke from crazyweed. We wanted to refuse until she said you’d get onboard at Black Sand Beach.”

“Jake my friend, I’ll be getting off when we deliver the cargo at Sand Point. You’ll need these enchanted objects to get home to Dragon Crag, but they would be very suspicious anywhere else.  I have prepared this gold covered wooden box. If you put the ring and amulet in this box, it will block their magic and hide their power. Use them only when you’re far from any Glastamear harbor.”

David who was standing nearby said, “What if a Great Northern Blast comes at us after you leave. No sailor has ever survived one of those ferocious northern storms that originate in the lands of floating ice and the lands that never know summer.”

“I have survived one as well as nine sailors on three line fishing ships from Snowport. With these magic objects, you too will even survive such as violent storm.”

Marin said, “Please, tell us that story.”

Michael told the story of the desperate journey to Snow Troll Fiord through a Great Northern Blast. He told of the difficulty of getting the Snowport healers to Rock Point and safety. Before the tale was finished, it suddenly grew cold again.

Michael explained, “We are near Northport. There is an enchanted object in the city that prevents all fire magic. As we sail farther north, we will sail past its effect.”

The travel to Sand Point was slowed because the seasonal winds required frequent tacking, and they would only use the sail designed for those conditions rather than the much larger gas bag sail used when winds blew from the stern. On shore they could only see the vast expanse of the Great Northern Forest covered in its winter coat of deep snowdrifts. Ice had formed along the shore for about forty paces out to sea, and floating ice mountains caused them to occasionally change directions. The floating ice mountains were more common and a greater danger in summer, and these examples were too large to be missed even in darkness. Michael had allowed enough time, and they reached the ice shelf near Sand Point one day ahead of Michael’s scheduled date.

There was a thick shelf of ice off the coast about two hands thick. Michael used the skiff to cross over to the ice together with Jim and the Oxbow brothers. He began to melt an opening in the ice slightly larger than the Silver Trident’s width and about twice as long. He was making a place for the ship to dock on the ice shelf. About an hour after he began, Michael motioned for the ship to pull into the opening in the ice shelf to unload. The crew and Michael were busy transferring the cargo onto the ice for the rest of the day. The same spell that kept the ship warm also prevented the ice from reforming within a few hands of the hull. Once everything was unloaded and pushed about half way to land, the Silver Trident sailed away leaving Michael, Lady Agnes, Jim Neville, the Oxbow Brothers, and the other three healers on the ice with their supplies.

They walked carefully across the snow-covered pack ice toward the Inn of Restful Repose of the Kindly Merchant, which was visible about a thousand paces to the north. Michael could see that over a score of sleighs were already parked around the inn. As they approached across the ice, the inn’s owner, Sid, came to greet them. He hugged Michael and was introduced to Lady Agnes and her companions. Michael explained that the goods had been offloaded on the ice and the sleigh drivers needed to go out and load them, except for one sleigh, which would take Lady Agnes and the three others into Snowport.

When they were ready to depart for Snowport, the aristocratic Lady Agnes of Ice Castle and formerly the manager of Northport Hospital commented, “Damn Michael, I grew up in Northport and thought that city was cold in winter, but I’ve never felt anything like this bone numbing cold. If you spit, it will freeze before it hits the ground.”

Michael took out a small pouch and gave it to her. “My Lady that did occur to me. These four ruby rings have been enchanted with the fire mage spell of
warm blanket
. You and the other ladies merely need to put them on your fingers to get warm. Unfortunately, they will not work when you get to the city because fire magic is gone from Snowport, but if you travel to the villages of the White Plains, they’ll be useful. My friend Tobias Howardson, will have arranged for warm accommodations for you and your associates until you rent or purchase a house.”

“Thank Father God for you Michael. You should keep in contact with me using that mage thought-talk of yours.” She hugged him and got into the sleigh with her three friends.

While the goods were being loaded, Michael, his five friends, and Sid went into the comfort of the inn. The whole floor of the common room was covered with the fur-lined sleeping bags of the sleigh drivers who had spent the night inside.

“As I promised, I will always have a room for you Michael. Let me get you some warm cider, and we can talk about your trip.”

They found a seat by the fireplace, and Sid’s wife brought them hot cider, bread still warm from the over, and fish chowder enriched with elk milk.

Sid handed Michael a pouch of coins and said, “I only had to spend about half of your money. I hired twenty-five sleighs for your goods and five sleeping sleighs. We have ten extra drivers. The plan is to take turns sleeping and not stop except for meals and to let the elk graze. The mayor of Snowport will have his sleighs here by morning. He is also sending along ten archers as guards, but I can’t imagine there will be brigands active in this weather. This has been the coldest winter in my memory We’ve laid in enough extra food to give everyone a hearty breakfast in the morning, and everyone expects to depart for Briarton soon after.”

“How many days do the drivers think it will take to reach Briarton?” Michael asked.

“The snow conditions are perfect for snow-elk travel. The lead driver thinks that you’ll arrive in Briarton on the fifth day if you keep moving all night and spend only two hours a day for the elk to feed and rest. These sleighs are faster than any horse drawn wagon. They’re about as fast as a man on horseback.”

“Sid, you’ve done an outstanding job in organizing this relief effort. You’ll have saved many lives in Briarton. My friend, your debt to me is forgiven.”

“Thank you Michael. Let me show you and your friends to your room; I need to help my wife prepare for the evening meal.”

Michael shared the room with Jim and the Oxbow brothers. The room was spacious and already had a fire burning in the fireplace. Michael and his friends rested until dinnertime. When they entered the common room that evening, the boisterous crowd noticed Michael enter and cheered. Michael went from man to man introducing himself. He had a perfect memory for names because of the training of his mentor William, and he asked each man about his hometown and family. Almost all the men lived in small towns and farms in the White Plains or the area directly around Snowport. They all seemed please at the winter trip and the chance to earn some extra money.

Michael sat with the lead driver, who was a gray-haired senior named Alfred. Since there were far too many people for the number of chairs and benches in the inn, they sat next to each other on the floor eating snow bison stew. Alfred explained the route they expect to travel and talked about the snow-elk that he clearly loved. The animals had huge hoofs that served them like human snowshoes, and they could sprint at impressive speeds to escape from great wolves, snow leopards, and other predators of the far north. Alfred explained that the roughness of the ride would depend on the snow conditions, but Alfred expected it to be exceptionally smooth since there had been little wind to form snowdrifts.

They chatted through dinner, and Michael made an effort to say goodnight to everyone, remembering every name using the spell
perfect recall
, which he had learned from William in the first months of his apprenticeship. He found two men in the early stages of the white pneumonia and cured them secretly.

Chapter 18

In the morning, the ten sleighs from Snowport arrived with the master healer Lady Marsha of Snowport who was relocating to Briarton. She had been leading the healers of Snowport. Michael greeted Lady Marsha and her three friends, who Michael had first met at Snow Troll Fiord that past autumn. He also introduced himself to each of the Snowport drivers. The drivers all treated Lady Marsha with great deference even though she was pretending to be an ordinary apothecary. Michael suspected that all of them knew she was the most senior healer in Snowport for many years before the pogrom. They realized that she and her friends had returned at great personal risk to help them through what was now always referred to as the winter of death.

Michael decided to ride in the first sleigh with Alfred. The trailbreaker sleigh was pulled by four snow-elk, instead of the normal two. It had extremely wide runners to create a show path for the other sleighs to follow, and of course, the most experienced man in the group was driving it. Michael kept a cast of
detect life
and
detect all manna
as a precaution, but he did not expect any interference from rogue knight protectors this far north. In the Snowport area, they had all been recalled to the temple compound.

The first two hours of travel thrilled Michael. He was excited by the speed and thought this was the best possible method of travel, except perhaps to glide through the sky as a giant eagle. It was in the third hour that he detected the life signs of eighteen creatures running parallel to the caravan, but invisible to normal sight because of a ridgeline. Michael had brought his armor, but he was wearing his black traveling clothing with his fur-lined overcoat. He removed his heavy mittens, strung his longbow, and notched an arrow. The wolves were still not visible, but Michael could tell they had turned to intercept the caravan. Snow-elk were their natural prey, and an elk in harness would be almost helpless.

Michael was a good shot but not a great shot; he had trained under his friend Jim for three years. He was not in the league with archer soldiers or even more avid hunters, but he was much better than either a normal merchant or healer. As he stood in preparation, Jim in the sleigh directly behind the lead one noticed Michael’s actions and also notched an arrow.

When the lead great wolf came over the ridge, two arrows were loosed, both striking it in its heart from slightly different angles. It dropped instantly. The other pack members, seeing their leader fall, retreated.

Alfred looked at Michael quizzically. “Michael Son-of-William, are you really merely a successful young merchant? You were ready to loose your arrow at the exact spot from which that great wolf appeared before it was even visible, and you and your friend both put your first arrows directly into its heart. What magic is this?”

“I heard a high-pitched yelp. I was lucky with my shot. My friend Jim is really a much better archer than I am.” Michael knew from his healing training that as men grew older their hearing for high-pitched sound declined, and he had designed his lie to consider that fact.

Alfred was not convinced, but he said nothing else. The pack continued to run parallel to the caravan for another hour, but great wolves don’t have the stamina of an elk, and they gave up and moved away. Later that day, Michael noted the life signs of fifteen enormous creatures. He waited to see if they were the almost mythical creatures known in legend as snow mammoths, but they never came close enough for Michael to know for certain. He reached out with his mage thought-talk and found them to be gentle creatures with few natural enemies. Since he was anxious to see them, Michael mentally encouraged the snow mammoth’s leader to head in their direction. Soon, the herd was standing on a ridge about five hundred paces away.

“By Father God, those are the first snow mammoths seen by anyone in this province in over forty years. I thought they were gone completely,” Alfred said.

He slowed the sleigh and watched them wander by. Michael had read that men of the Kingdom of Green Jungle rode such huge creatures to war, but Michael could not fathom how they even got onto the giant creatures’ backs or stayed mounted when the huge beast charged. Like the war monkeys in ancient stories, Michael had always assumed that tale must have been made to impress children.

Firebreath, the red dragon, had claimed that the three kingdoms of the east would invade Min Hollow and perhaps all of Glastamear in the spring. The kingdoms were the Kingdom of the Yellow Plains, the Kingdom of the Black Forests, and the Kingdom of the Green Jungle. If the men of the Green Jungle really used mammoths in warfare, Michael could not understand how any common soldier could stand against them. Ancient tales also attributed fantastic powers to the lancers of the Yellow Plains and the horse archers of the Black Forest, but Michael thought that surely the armored mammoths of the Green Jungle must be myth. Michael had to reconsider his knowledge of past wars. It might have been that only fire magic had made the defense of the great city of Min Hollow possible.

He’d seen the manna of the Most Holy Son of Perry Ascendant, Steven the Fifteenth, when he flew over Min Hollow last autumn. It was many times the manna of the most powerful fire mages he knew, like High Priests Carson and Simon and that monster Xian. The Holy Son was reputed to wield fantastic energies given directly to him as the leader of the church by Holy Perry himself. He had read ancient stories of the Holy Sons creating whole walls of flame to stop charging lancers or horse archers. In the war of a hundred days, fifteen hundred years earlier, Steven the First, was said to have brought down spears of blue sunlight that melted men and their armor into a fused black slug. Even the rocks were said to have melted into glowing red lava, which poured forth from the point of impact. Maybe these stories had more truth than he previously had suspected, and he wondered if an apprentice healer had any chance of producing change against men who could wield such immense power.

The weather stayed clear and very cold, and Michael took his turn sleeping in the swaying hammocks in the sleeping sleighs. He used none of his magic except to search for dangers, but there were no more circumstances like the great wolves’ attack. They bypassed the walled towns along the way. Michael detected no manna signs in Appleton or Forest Clearing. Lady Marsha decided to send one of her healers back in an apothecary sleigh to help the towns along their route. On the fifth morning, they were near the cave where he’d rescued Master Bradley, the business manager of the Grand Hospital of Briarton. Less then an hour later, they were at the closed gates of Glastamear’s second largest city.

Michael yelled up to the archers on the wall, “We bring supplies from the mayor of Snowport and the governor of Southport.”

“I have orders to let no one in for any reason. You bring a second round of the white pneumonia with you.”

“Check with Governor Haddad. Ask him to come to the wall,” Michael yelled.

The guard seemed to think things over for a minute. “Governor’s dead and High Priest Wheaton has been locked in the temple for two months. Sir Gregory is in charge.”

“Send a message to Sir Gregory. Tell him Michael Son-of-William is at the gate with thirty-five wagons of food.”

Fifteen minutes later Sir Gregory stood looking down at Michael. “Thank Holy Perry that you’ve come with food, Michael. Starvation is common among the poor and working classes. Many thousands might have died before spring from hunger. Already we have uncountable dead from the white pneumonia. However much we need the generous gift of food, your group may still carry a new round of the epidemic with you.”

“Gertrude, an apothecary of Southport, developed a cure for the white pneumonia. I have four apothecaries who know her formula in our caravan. We’ve had no one come down with the pneumonia on our trip here because of their treatment.”

“Do you swear by Holy Perry that you have brought no one with the epidemic disease?”

“I, Michael Son-of-William, swear by Holy Perry and Father God that no one in this caravan carries the white pneumonia.”

Sir Gregory motioned to the guards who opened both the outer gates and the inner gates, and the sleighs moved into the city toward the central market square in front of the Great Temple of Briarton. Before they reached it, Sir Gregory ran up to the first sleigh and directed Michael to the Merchants’ Quarter.

“Michael, the Temple Square is a horror; it’s piled with many thousands of bodies laid out in the snow. The lower classes have stacked all the dead there to show contempt for the church. It’s been too cold for burial, and many people are furious with the church because the temple compound has been locked for two months.”

Sir Gregory hopped up onto the sleigh beside Michael, “Let me direct you to the merchants’ common warehouse. It’s the only enclosed space large enough for this much food. I swear that I will see to a just and free distribution of the supplies you’ve delivered.”

Michael was somewhat skeptical, but there seemed to be no other government authority to trust, and he certainly didn’t want the church in charge of the distribution. He knew from personal experience that the Briarton High Priest, Baron Joseph Wheaton, was corrupt since he had bribed him on his previous visit.

By the time they reached the courtyard of the warehouse and unloaded the thirty-five wagons, it was dark, but the sleigh drivers preferred not to spend the night in the city. Michael purchased three of the sleighs with their snow-elk from their driver owners. There were no snow-elk sleighs in Briarton, and Michael was certain he would need them if the weather remained bad. He needed one for his group to use and two to be used by the apothecaries to reach the smaller town of Briarton Province.

Michael and his five friends as well as Lady Marsha and her three healers trudged though the snow buried streets to the nearby Unicorn Steed Inn. It was nearly empty, and they all found comfortable rooms. The innkeeper recognized Michael and put him in the same huge suite that he had occupied on his visit in the autumn. Jim and the Oxbow brothers joined him in that suite, and Lady Marsha and her three healers took a suite together on the floor below. The Unicorn Steed was famous as the most luxurious inn in Glastamear. The wealthy always seemed to have food even in the worst of times, and the innkeeper arranged a large and satisfying meal served in the private dining room of Michael’s suite to the whole party of travelers.

The meal was festive since they had just completed a difficult overland journey. Michael explained that he had purchased the three sleighs with their snow-elk so that healers could use two as apothecary vehicles to reach the many small communities in snow-covered areas of rural Briarton Province. The third, Michael and his friends would use to head even farther north to the small town of Crow Crossroads near the entrance to Min Hollow. He wanted to investigate a remote mountain valley, which sheltered a castle on a crag. He told the group about the attempt of the Church of Perry Ascendant to create an order of healer priests to replace the murdered Healers’ Guild members.

Jim said, “I think there is a high priority project to do before we let two of the sleighs move on to smaller towns. The Temple Square is piled with frozen bodies, most of them died of the white pneumonia. The whole mess in the square will be a source of future infections for anyone who was missed by the first round of the disease.”

Michael nodded in agreement, and Lady Marsha said, “Burying the dead is clearly a priority, and the only vehicles that can do that in these conditions are the three sleighs. Let’s begin in the morning.”

“But where can we put them? The ground is frozen solid and covered man-height deep with snow,” Peter said.

Michael replied, “There is an extensive cave system under this area of Briarton Province. The cave where I found Master Bradley and his apprentices is part of an enormous limestone network. I’ll find a cavern close to town that’s also dry. We could probably make about five or six round trips a day with maybe a hundred bodies transported in each trip. That should clear the square in a week. We can treat the bodies with respect even in a mass grave. I’ll speak with Sir Gregory about it tomorrow. We should say the rituals of the reincarnation for the dead.”

Lady Marsha suggested, “Once we complete the burial cave, the town can build a monument to the deceased if the survivors want to memorialize their lost ones. I think keeping the death rituals intact will be important in a return to normalcy and winning the goodwill of the citizens.”

Michael replied, “I’ll see if we can enlist a priest for the rituals. A few may have been outside of the Great Temple when the gates were barred.”