He walked back to his inn through the cold streets and enjoyed an excellent dinner of rye bread, lobster stew and baked cinnamon-flavored butter tubers. He went to bed early, glad at the comfort of a down filled bed with a stack of many quilts for warmth.
Chapter 18
When Michael opened his eyes the following morning it seemed impossibly bright through the frosty windows of his bedroom. When he sat up, he realized that someone had already been in his room to build a fresh fire in the fireplace, and the room was cool but not cold. He got up and looked out the window next to the bed, it was a clear morning, but six inches of snow had fallen during the night.
He’d seen snow a few times in Hearthshire Provence, but it was a shock to see this amount in the early autumn. It made him realize something. All the buildings in Snowport had doors that opened onto second floor balconies. Were those doors needed to get out of houses in winter when the snow was over four paces deep?
He dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. Because he had free time before he needed to meet Tobias, he decided to look for a warmer coat. He had no intention of using winter blanket or any other fire mage spell in a town where it might be noticed. There was a men’s clothing store near the square that had a gold-painted crown on its sign. The gold crown was the common symbol used to tell the riffraff to stay away because the merchant would overcharge for everything. If he went sailing, he’d need the warmest coat he could find as long as the boat was anywhere near fire mages and he couldn’t use a spell for warmth.
Noting his fine clothes, jeweled dagger, and excellent boots, the proprietor fawned over him, probably hoping to take advantage of an out-of-town traveler. Michael bargained hard, leaving the story in sham anger only to be followed into the street. The game was fun and exactly what would be expected from a fellow merchant. It also took up much of his spare time before he needed to meet Tobias.
He left the shop with an expensive knee-length gray wool coat that was completely lined with white fox. The collar, hood, and cuffs were trimmed with red fox, and its buttons were polished silver set with garnets. It came with matching fox-lined gloves, and a scarlet wool scarf. The coat cost more than two good horses, but it would keep him warm and continue to project the wealthy merchant’s son image he was trying for.
As he walked to Wrights’ Lane, he was warm for the first time that morning. Tobias was waiting with three middle-aged men at the entrance of the row of shipwright buildings. He introduced the three men as captains of various ships, but since Michael didn’t recognize the vessels names, he wasn’t sure what sort of ship they usually captained. However, it was clear they expected to captain Michael’s three boats. Tobias obviously considered them trustworthy; he introduced each by mentioning their family member who was among the missing healers.
They walked into a warehouse across the lane from the docks. Five more men were waiting there. Michael was merely a spectator to the negotiations that followed. It was obvious that everyone present knew the ships would travel north to pick up the healers and then make a long journey to deliver them somewhere else. They argued about modifications to the fishing boats, like replacing the fish storage hole with an area with ten hammocks and room to store food for a dozen people for several weeks. They argued about every detail of sail quality, fishing gear, pitch coating, planking reinforcement, and a dozen other nautical things Michael was completely ignorant about. He was embarrassed to realize that if Tobias hadn’t arranged for the captains to be there, he would have made a complete fool of himself through his ignorance.
One thing that came out of the discussion was how the healers had escaped. The king’s written command to arrest the healers had reached the mayor first. He’d immediately notified the guild master of the danger and then he had gone to see High Priest Carson. Carson had kept the king’s messenger waiting for four hours, thereby giving the healers enough time to get away.
Finally, Michael signed purchase orders for three line-fishing boats and their supplies. The whole negotiation had taken four hours, and Michael thought he had probably bought the boats at cost, about half what he’d expected to pay. They would be provisioned and ready for a long voyage in three days.
As Michael walked back to the inn he considered High Priest Carson. Growing up, he would have assumed that all high priests were good and devout men. He was relieved to learn that at least one really was, and pleased to realize that healers who had devoted their lives to helping the citizens of Snowport would be loved enough for many men to face the terrible punishments decreed by the king if their assistance were discovered.
It was on his walk back to the inn that Michael discovered his relationship with the people of Snowport had changed radically. Many strangers greeted him by name and smiled. An apple vendor gave him a free one and blessed him in Perry’s Light. He bought thirty-five simple gold bands to enchant with submerge manna, and the merchant didn’t even try and overcharge him.
At the inn, the great room was crowded with twenty people waiting to see him. They had figured out he must be a healer, and he was now the only one in town. The innkeeper offered him the use of his office for the remainder of his visit, which somehow he realized would be exactly three more days.
He helped the sick until almost midnight. The next day he changed his clinic location to an empty warehouse near the water. He hoped that if the knight protectors came for him, there would be time to cast transparency and then dive into the frigid water of the bay using water breath to stay underwater and winter blanket to keep from freezing. He kept a cast of the spell to discover manna in action during his clinic, but for the next three days, no one with fire mage manna approached him. He treated more than two hundred people a day, curing most, and removing suffering and easing the passing of a few.
The final evening before he was to sail, a priest who wasn’t a fire mage came to Michael’s room at the inn. The man carried a wooden box and didn’t look threatening. He said only a few words.
“Sir, the high priest and mayor have sent you something.” He put the box on the table and walked away. It contained the Perry’s Hero medallion on a gold chain that he’d seen in the workshop of Peter of Gold Street. It seemed everyone in town knew about his efforts to help the healers.
With the morning tide, the three boats were ready to sail north. Michael had named them, the Diana, the Naiad, and William’s Hope. Of course, he sailed in the Diana.
Before he went aboard, he met with each captain and presented each with the golden amulet he had enchanted with still waters. He claimed they were presents from the naiads of Black Sand Beach, twenty thousand paces south of Northport harbor, and that they would sill the waves in a radius of about a hundred paces but not block the wind at all. He explained that they would sail to Black Sand Beach after picking up the mages.
Michael commented that he would be getting off as they headed south at the hamlet of Sand Point where he’d left his horses. He needed to look for other healers inland and he had business in Briarton.
He assured them that the naiads would know of their approach to Black Sand Beach long before they reached the reef. If they got separated on their journey, they should ask for Obert the shaman when they made contact with the naiads, but in no case should they try and cross the reef without a naiad guide. It was the death place of a hundred ships.
One captain asked why the naiads were offering help.
“They have no love for Perry or his church, but they do respect healers. Really, what can the church do about it? If every knight protector on the continent attacked Black Sand Beach, the naiads would just stay underwater until the knights either gave up or drown trying to reach them.”
Chapter 19
The fishing boats each had small cabins on the stern decks that enclosed a cast iron cooking stoves surrounded by stone safety enclosures. Each cabin held two bunk beds. The small room was packed with cooking supplies, hanging from the ceiling and stored on every shelf. There was even storage beneath the bunks. I
f a meal were being prepared, it would be impossible to sleep in one of the cabins. The line fishing boats normally went to sea with a crew of four, but only two were ever sleeping at once. Michael decided to use the below deck sleeping room prepared for the healers. It would be quiet and roomy until they picked up the Snowport healers.
Eric Goodfriend captained the Diana. Once they were outside the harbor and sailing north, Captain Eric walked over and slapped him on the back showing a wide grin.
“Thank you Michael; you made this possible.”
“I could never have gotten started without your help and the others who’ve joined us.”
“My mother, Lady Marsha is the guild master for the provinces of Snowport, White Plains, and the White Mountains. She gathered and led the healers who escaped by the sea. I have a good idea where they’ll hide, a cave in Snow Troll Fiord. It’s a three day sail with favorable winds.”
“Trolls, are there really trolls left in northern Glastamear?”
“Perhaps, but no one I know has ever seen one. The name comes from a rock formation by the mouth of the fiord.”
“Did your mother know that the many of the priests and all of the knight protectors could detect a healer’s manna from thousands of paces away?”
“She wasn’t willing to explain things that are secrets of the Healers’ High Council, but she did tell me they could be spotted by the church from a distance. That’s why they fled to an uninhabited region, but she knew they couldn’t stay there through the winter. Our problem was to find a safe place for them with food and supplies for the whole winter. It’s when you said that you knew a haven without priests that we decided to act. Within a month or at best six weeks, the Snow Troll Fiord will freeze solid. After the freeze, their hiding place can only be reached by a dog sled traveling from the mouth of the fiord. It would have been almost impossible to keep them in firewood and well fed through the eight months of snow and ice. Michael, you gave us hope, and we’re also lucky that all the knight protectors had traveled south looking for two escaped healers. Was that your doing?”
“Yes, I helped a couple of guys about my age. They are also making their way to Black Sand Beach. In case the church captures some of us, I don’t want to tell you our final destination now, but Lord Hampton and other senior healers are either there already at the safe haven or waiting at Black Sand Beach to sail there with you. I’ll tell your mother, and she can let you know once you sail from Black Sand Beach. The church in Snowport almost seemed ready to allow us to escape.”
“High Priest Carson is a good man, but he doesn’t control the knight protectors. They report through their own Major Blake and through him directly to the parent church in Min Hollow. If they’d been in town, they would never allow three boats manned by relatives of healers to sail.”
It was a beautiful sunny day, and Michael spent it getting familiar with the fishing boat. She had three types of sails for normal use and a small storm sail for bad weather. Eric explained the layout.
“That’s what we call the gas bag.” He pointed to the huge white sack of a sail billowing from the mast. “We have the fishing sail, a smaller triangular sail that we use when pulling our lines, and a windward sail for tacking close to the wind. The final sail I hope you never see in use. It’s the storm topsail. We use it only to give steerage in a storm. In autumn we sometimes have Great Northern Blasts, ferocious storms that could sink all three boats in minutes; waves can crest at ten or even twenty paces high and the wind can go from calm to a blasting gale within an hour.”
Eric took Michael to the back of the boat and taught him to line fish. They baited a line of fifty hooks with balls of smelly bait from a barrel on the aft deck. As they played out the fishing line behind the boat, Eric explained, “We’re moving too fast for good fishing with the gas bag set, but you get the idea. We’ll check back in an hour and see what we’ve got.”
Eric attached the line to a brass gong and striker arrangement explaining that it would sound if twenty or more substantial fish were on the line. Within ten minutes, it was sounding in the mellow boom of striker on brass.
“Damn, that was quick,” the captain said as he turned the reel crank to pull the line onboard. Another sailor stood by with a gaff to pull the fish onto the deck.
The line held twenty-five large fish.
Captain Eric marveled, “Mackerel, damn good eating. They’re one of the elf-gift fish, but I’ve never seen them take the bait that quick, you usually only bring in one or two. Perhaps they were following the still water trail from the amulet you gave me. Those magic naiad amulets could make the three captains who have them the most successful fishermen in the history of Glastamear, but I’m not sure we could keep them secret. If we sail into any harbor or even get near other boats, the sudden lack of waves would give away our secret. Is there a way to deactivate them when we head into a harbor?”
Michael thought about it for a few seconds. “I remember an Old Kingdom book I read years ago. A magic amulet was kept in a golden box lined with linden wood. If you could put the amulet into anything gold, but have it not touch the gold, I think it would stop the spell until you withdrew it. You’d probably need only a extremely thin gold leaf layer not a whole golden box.”
Eric smiled and nodded. “I can make the boxes onboard. I have some gold leaf left from lettering the names on the boats. I’ll make one for each captain.”
That evening they ate a delicious meal of fried mackerel and carrots with apples. After dinner, Michael went below deck into the hole prepared for the healers. The place was totally dark like a cave. He enchanted a small gold coin with a torch spell he’d learned from the fire mage book. He found a hammer and nails in the carpenter’s supply chest and he nailed the enchanted coin to the ceiling: the room glowed with a soft blue light. It was not enough to read by, but enough to keep the healers from stumbling over each other without adding the danger of fire from an oil lamp.
Michael enchanted a night surgery spell on himself and began to read the fire mage book he’d stolen in Northport. He memorized twenty new spells, but he was reluctant to try them below decks on a flammable boat. He decide he could try them tomorrow either on the deck or by walking a few dozen yards from the boat by using the float spell Obert had taught him.
He fell asleep in a hammock thinking of Diana and wishing he could travel to Rock Point with the other healers, but he needed to search both the inland towns and cities and Southport to rescue any healers who survived. He couldn’t bring himself to pray to Perry like he’d learned growing up, but he said a small prayer to Father God of the ancients asking for his guidance before he fell asleep.
Chapter 20
Michael was awakened by the sound of anxious shouts, indicating that something was dreadfully wrong. He put on his fox-lined coat and climbed up the ladder to the deck. As soon as he put his left foot on the new wood of the uncovered deck, he slipped and fell on his ass. He slid rapidly towards the gunnels but grabbed a rope that had been strung along the deck while he was sleeping to provide an extra handhold.
Captain Eric helped him up, and Michael looked around at the dramatic change since he’d gone to sleep. A calm had brought up an icy fog that was adhering to every surface forming a thin treacherous layer of ice. The moons and stars were no longer visible. The crew had hung oil lamps from the bow and stern, and Michael could barely see the lights of the two other fishing boats nearby.
“Michael, have you ever heard of a death fog,” Eric asked.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“The air temperature has dropped well below the freezing point of seawater very quickly. The sea itself won’t freeze, that takes weeks, but whenever the water splashes onto a sold object it will be coated with ice. This ice fog happens only when a Great Northern Blast is on the way. Not many sailors have ever seen this and lived to tell the tale. We know of it mostly from people who’ve seen death fog from a comfortable place on land and from ancient mariners’ sagas.”
“I may be able to help with the boats temperature,” Michael replied.
“We’re trying to take down the gas bag sail before the storm wind arrives, but the rigging is frozen. If a real Blast Storm reaches us before we’ve secured these big sails we’re certain to roll.”
“I need to get something from below.” Michael climbed down the ladder and retrieved three of the largest gold coins in his purse.
He couldn’t use a fire spell powerful enough to warm the whole ship without risking catching it on fire, but he had used winter blanket on himself, and the ship was made of wood, an organic substance like flesh. He enchanted with all his manna the first coin and held it against the rafter. The whole area was instantly warm and comfortable. He took the hammer and some nails from the carpenter’s chest and went back on deck. He hammered the gold crown coin to the mast, and the temperature of the boat immediately increased to well above freezing.
“Holy Perry’s Flame! What magic is that? I never heard of a healer doing anything to a whole ship.” Captain Eric seemed too shocked to be pleased at a chance to avoid a capsized ship.
Michael didn’t want to explain stealing the fire mage book. “It’s also magic from the naiads. Sailors have good reason to honor and respect them. I need to get to the other two boats with enchanted coins.”
“You’ve some powerful magic, but if the storm comes while you’re in the dingy, you’ll be gone in seconds.”
“You don’t need to break out the dingy. I know another spell that will do it.” Michael cast float and hopped over the side, jogging across the still water to the nearby boat. He enchanted a gold coin and nailed it to the mast. All three had their storm sail up and both still water and winter blanket spell in effect when he returned to the Diana.
The Pogrom of Mages: The Healers of Glastamear: Volume One Page 8