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.
Chapter 5
They all rose and began to walk along the black sand. In the distance, Michael saw a giant rock jutting up between the reef and the shore. It seemed to be their destination.
He thought the naiads’ version of the Reel of Passage might be the true one because he knew the Church of Perry Ascendant was really a nest of
fire mages, and there had never been a time when none of the fifteen kingdoms of man had been at war. If he’d created men, he’d be disappointed too.
“What do you know of holy Perry, Arianna? Do your songs talk of him and his church?”
“Maybe tomorrow morning we’ll gather on the beach and sing the song of Perry and the Red Dragon, Firebreath. It tells of Firebreath’s revenge for the attempted destruction of her egg by the fool Perry and of her great prank on humankind to exact her revenge.”
It was near sunset when they reached their destination. What he had thought was a rock was actually a cut stone tower stretching about forty feet above the waves. It had crenellation around the top and a single wooden door for entry near the waterline. Small round glass windows like portholes circled the top floor.
“Arianna, this tower was built with metal tools, and some of you have metal tridents. If you use no fire, where do you get metal for tools and weapons?”
“What you’ve heard is true; we’re thieves. It’s not difficult if you can go invisible and know open all locks.”
“The myths always say you leave a pearl or two in place of whatever you take.”
“That part is true. There is a certain ethic to our pilfering ways. Sometimes we leave a pretty shell and sometime an emerald from a shipwreck, but most often a pearl. It’s part of the fun to hide and watch the discovery of the theft. Some people are thrilled and a few are really mad. We don’t do it often because there is not much we need that humans produce.”
“I thought all of you lived in the sea, not in stone towers.”
“The tower is just for guests like you. It’s your home for as long as you like. You’re exhausted; rest and we’ll see you on the shore a few hours after daybreak.”
Michael was not a good swimmer because he’d been raised in an inland village with only a small creek, but Arianna had taught him water breath. He said the mage-tongue words to invoke it before he began his swim.
The tower’s steps extended down into the water so it was accessible even during low tides. He found the door opened easily and he climbed the circular stair until he entered a single spacious room. He investigated his temporary home. It was cool in the stone tower now that daylight was fading, and the naiads had left him a bin of coal even though they never used fire.
The fireplace had a cooking pot hanging above the coal grade, and a stone saltwater basin contained two lobsters and six small crabs. A pipe provided fresh water from a rain catchment on the roof. Michael wondered if this room was his future. The naiads had been good to him, but he knew this tower would never be his real home.
He lit some coal with the fatwood and flint and put water on to boil. He climbed a ladder to the roof while he waited for the water to get ready for the lobster. Father Moon was big and blue in the eastern sky and Little Brother Moon was setting over the western sea. The Great Dragon stretched high above with the impressive Red Nebula forming its sinister eye. He wondered how many of these stars were homes to elves, their children, or other intelligent beings.
He cast detect all manna with the full force of his manna. Around the reef were more than a hundred water manna glows from naiads who had made the tideland their home. They seemed to swim into openings in the reef as they retired for the night.
North up the coast at least twenty thousand paces, he could see a strong point of fire manna in use and many smaller glows. That was probably the high priest of Westport and his priests and knights. He wondered if they had gathered to flay and burn one of his guild brothers.
Back east he detected three manna glows he recognized as the knight protectors who had followed him through the Great Black Thicket. They seemed to be heading back to Hearthshire Town to report his death.
Far at sea at the limit of his range he noticed four manna glows of healers. At least some had escaped by sea. He was uncertain where they were headed, but only Mitchell Island lay in that direction. Was there any safe place?
With a heavy heart he went down to prepare dinner and go to sleep.
Chapter 6
Michael woke at first uncertain where he was. After a few seconds, he remembered the past few days were no nightmare. William and probably eight hundred other guild members were dead. Maybe a few dozen had timely warning, but the church would have taken records from the guildhalls; they would know exactly who had eluded them.
Michael thought of his hometown of Riverton. He knew all eighty people who lived there, but he never expected to return home. His grandmother had been a famous master healer who was visited by the sick from all the nearby villages. His grandfather was a successful farmer. He didn’t remember much of them. His grandmother had died when he was two and his grandfather died following year.
His parents had farmed the most fertile plot of land near the Blue River. They were prosperous by village standards, and it was that reputation for success that had brought the brigands who killed them. It was the year he moved to Hearthshire Town for his apprenticeship. The brigands noticed that his parents had the largest house in town. One night they murdered them, and searched their house for hidden treasure. There was no treasure to find. Michael had vowed to find and kill them, but his mentor William redirected his anger into further study of healing as a more noble way of honoring his parents.
The bed was comfortable, stuffed with dried seaweed rather than feathers, and even softer than his bed at William’s house. It smelled of the sea. He was relaxed and recovered from his ordeal. He stayed in bed and tried to decide on his next move, enjoying a lazy quiet morning, remembering sad things and recalling happy times too.
Since he could now hide his manna, he could return to a human town and perhaps create some sort of life. That gift of water magic from the naiads was priceless. His problem was that the men of Glastamear seldom moved from one village to another. A few like him might move to a larger town for an apprenticeship, but at nineteen he was too old not to have developed a trade already. He had no skill but healing and any attempt to practice that trade would bring the church.
He climbed to the top of the tower to relieve himself and discovered a two-mast schooner under full sail and headed west. His spell revealed the glow of six fire mages on her deck. The boat tacked to move in the same southwestern direction that the fleeing healers had taken last night. Sparsely populated Mitchell Island was the only land on that course.
It couldn’t be a coincidence; he suspected someone had confessed the healers’ escape plans to the church. He knew the priest could extract information from anyone; there were no secrets kept by those they took alive. Every healer would confess to being part of the murder of late King Justin and his court. Confession before flaying and burning was always done in the public square and the citizens of Glastamear would probably believe it.
He had no money and no skill he could practice. The skill-less and land-less poor of Glastamear had few choices except to indenture themselves in the mines where on average they died by twenty-five or to sharecrop some poor track of land where they gradually starved. The crown would take almost anyone as a king’s soldier, but the training was brutal and sadistic and the life usually short because of the endless war with nearby kingdoms. He wasn’t certain he could kill anyone even in his own defense. Healers didn’t kill people.
He returned to his room, and discovered that while he was on the roof one of the naiads had brought a bowl of mangos and coconuts for his breakfast. They were a considerate race; he knew they didn’t eat these things themselves, so someone had gone to some trouble to get them for him. They didn’t get diseases like humans, but maybe some had injuries he could treat as partial recompense.
A few hours after breakfast, Michael swam ashore and joined dozens of naiads on the beach among the palms. Arianna came to meet him and led him into the crowd and introduced him to a huge male naiad named Obert, chief shaman of the Black Sand Beach pod.
“Welcome Elf-Blood, we’ve been expecting you for a couple of thousand years” Obert said in a dee
p-sea voice.
“He doesn’t know yet,” Arianna said with a grin.
Obert also smiled about some inside joke. “Oh yes, humans don’t know the comic Epic of Perry and the Red Dragon. We’ll need to sing it for him.”
“Michael, I need to tell you something about humans you may not realize,” Arianna said as if passing on bad news. “Humans don’t always tell the truth. All of the children of the elves except humans can tell when any other being lies so there is really no point of a lie except as part of a joke. When humans tell a fib, other humans can’t always tell.”
“That’s no sheep shit! Our whole church is just a financial scam; they’re merely a nest of Perry-damned fire mages pretending their spells are miracles from God. My parents and their friends paid those malignant hypocrites tithes their whole lives, even when they had too little left for themselves.”
Arianna continued, “Please don’t be insulted, but humans also have no long-term memory. If a naiad hears an epic song, we can remember every word three hundred years later. Humans can’t even repeat it the following morning.”
Obert moved forward and put his hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Elf-Blood, we mean no offense, but the song we will sing is two thousand years old; it’s the exact truth as sung by our ancestors at the beginning of the human race. We can tell no lies; this story of Perry is how it really was. The humans invented writing because they had no memory and liked to tell lies. Even a naiad can’t tell if a book lies.”
Like every child in the Kingdom of Glastamear, Michael had spent at least one hour each day studying the Sacred Text of Perry. From the age of four until he had entered his apprenticeship with William, he’d spent four thousand hours of studying bullshit. The naiads were trying to tell him that writing was a way of telling a lie over a long period of time, a way of reinventing history.
The Pogrom of Mages: The Healers of Glastamear: Volume One Page 2