They had been a village of 100 strong in the clearing of a dense forest of oak and pine and wore linen tunics bleached white by the sun that contrasted beautifully against their caramel skin and dark hair. Their small population and isolated circumstances allowed everyone to know their neighbour; everyone worked for the other, every child had friends to run through the streets and explore the forest with, and every elder had a coterie to smoke their pipes and gossip with about the most recent happenings. As such, the arrival of a stranger in their village was an entire affair, such was the case when a stranger leading a donkey-pulled cart of cloaked luggage arrived on the eve of the planting season.

The man was soft spoken, claiming he was a simple travelling Shaman and asked for a room to stay in for a short while while he planned the rest of his voyage. Visitors were rare, but always kindly received, and so the Shaman was graciously offered a room to stay in at the village's townhouse. His appearance was initially scant; for the first week and a half he was scarcely seen outside his room, although eavesdropping children said they could hear him sauntering in his room or clinking glass crockery when they stuck their ears to his door, much to the dismay of their parents. For a time, the people of the village almost forgot that the Shaman had even arrived, only being reminded of his existence by the gossip and rumours that circulated about.

Eventually the Shaman began making appearances around the village, occasionally making conversation with its people and asking questions about their health and their history, even sometimes exhibiting the mastery of his craft through firework displays or small alchemical experiments before disappearing into his room again. A select few learned that the Shaman had been preparing to reveal the fruits of his travels, and news of the event quickly became the talk of the town.

The next day a crowd formed in the square to watch the Shaman unveil a series of gold trimmed wooden stalls. Each were populated by vials and beakers containing vibrant liquids that changed colour when disturbed, hefty metallic tools for measuring the cosmos, bracelets, necklaces and clothing from distant countries placed on mannequins and plants resembling green, thorny towers that the Shaman called “Cacti”, among other peculiar articles of unknown function. The crowd cautiously approached each stall and examined the objects, while the Shaman stood at a podium at the fore and prepared to address the sea of caramel faces.

“My friends, my friends, I have brought to you priceless treasures and godly miracles that I have discovered in my many travels around the world! Elixirs capable of relieving hunger for a fortnight, apparel that grants superhuman strength, tools that can guide you out of any labyrinth and idols that ward off evil! Invaluable riches, I bring to you! And I would offer them all.” he bellowed

At this, murmurs circulated through the crowd, and the Shaman saw curiosity morph into concern and confusion.

“Do you not crave these godly gifts?” he asked, in an attempt to quell their apprehensions

A man standing at the front of the crowd approached the Shaman, who prepared to make another speech, and elected himself the speaker for the rest of the people.

“We are grateful for your offer, Shaman, but you speak of problems unknown to us. You offer us elixirs capable of relieving hunger, yet we have never known starvation. You offer us superhuman strength, yet no single man has ever needed to carry something too heavy for himself. You offer us tools to guide us to any point of interest, yet we never need to leave our forest, which we are well enough acquainted with. You offer us idols capable of warding off evil, yet nothing wicked resides among us. We are sorry, Shaman, but we will respectfully decline your kind offer, there are surely those less fortunate who would have great use of these miracles.” he explained

The Shaman lost himself in thought. He glanced between his treasures and the crowd, and then scanned the village around him, his eyes twitching nervously all the while.

“I see…” he said, after a pause. “Your words are kind, my friend, I have become rather fond of this place. I trust you when you say that you have been more than capable in the face of previous troubles, but if your certainty of the future ever fails you and you should find yourself lost in the face of adversity, I would set up a shop in this village to provide my knowledge and gifts, if you would kindly permit it.”

At this request, the villagers accepted, and began work on building a home that worked as a small store for the Shaman near the center of the village that held a fully equipped laboratory, and a stall to leave his donkey in.

As weeks passed the Shaman became integrated into the village’s cultures and traditions, learning the names of every individual, their relations to the rest of the village and the layout of the forest, which he frequented to catalogue various plant and fungal life. Occasionally he would bring plants back from the forest which he would sow along the streets, which he would sprinkle golden powder onto that would make them grow extraordinarily quick, decorating the once plain streets with an elegant collection of colourful leaves and flowers. Talk of godly gifts and priceless treasures faded into the past, and most assumed the Shaman had abandoned them to live a modest life.

Unfortunately, the ideal nature of the Shaman’s visit wouldn’t last. Two months following the eve of the harvest, a group of children had gone out on a particularly rainy day to hunt mushrooms and returned carrying one of their friends that had collapsed and become feverish. He was immediately taken to the village’s herbalist, who was certain the boy had eaten a poisonous mushroom without knowing better, and called in the Shaman for help creating an antidote. After examining the boy, the Shaman decided that poison had not been the cause of his symptoms, and ordered the boy’s friends to show him where he had collapsed.

Hours later, the Shaman returned and declared that the woods had become sick with a disease that manifested itself in dense forests known as “Greenblight” and that the poor boy must have caught their sickness by eating an infected plant. It was immediately agreed upon that none would step foot into the forest until a cure was devised. All the village’s crops were burned, and jars of seeds were distributed to be used in independent greenhouses.

The Shaman immediately went to work developing a cure to the Greenblight. In that time it began spreading to other members of the village; first with the children who had gone to the forest with the boy, and then to the adults. All work in the village was hampered as the majority of its members fell under a spell. The fields that once held bountiful produce were now barren, the once populated village center was nearly vacant, most spent their days bedridden and feverish. Days later, the Shaman emerged from his lab declaring he had discovered a cure to the Greenblight and quickly mobilised the few people in the village who had not contracted it to distribute the medicine. By the time the cure, now called the Viridicure, had been fully dispensed, the poor boy who had first gotten sick had lost his fever, and the village rejoiced; none had been lost by it.

Within hours, those who had taken the Viridicure began showing signs of improvement; the boy who had first come in contact with the sickness was able to stand again, and his peers had lost their fevers. For days the Shaman would be heralded as a hero, and parties would be held in the village square with renewed fervour, as the hardened confidence the villagers had had in themselves was left untouched.

The vibrancy was short lived, however, as those who had contracted the Greenblight only a week before had begun showing symptoms of the disease once more. The Shaman was called once again to create more of the cure, and he rushed to his lab, rejecting any of those who offered to help him, frustratingly explaining they would only get in his way.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

After a night of toil, the Shaman emerged with more of his Viridicure, and quietly distributed it to the sick. The next days were spent in apprehension as the people stood by to hear if the sick would get better. Overnight, they began to regain their health, but as if a vile curse had befallen the village, the people were damned to a week long cycle of disease and rehabilitation. Of the 100 members of the village, 70 had become bedridden, and 3 had been consumed by the Greenblight. During this time, the Shaman had become withdrawn from the public, spending his days isolated in his lab. The people would consult him desperately to create a stronger cure, to which he would bitterly admit that the task was beyond him and dismiss them with a handful of Viridicure. Abandoned by their saviour to a period of uncertainty, and ravaged by a plague they didn’t understand, shadows of doubt were cast upon the Shaman’s image, but none dared to speak their suspicion aloud.

The Shaman himself had remained untouched by the Greenblight and attributed his fortune to a strengthened immune system earned through his years of travel. When the villagers questioned him, he would reply that he was simply fortunate, and that the village should be thankful to have him among them, before changing the subject.

As more got sick, so the demand for medicine increased without the supply rising to meet it. One month after the Viridicure was first conceived, the Shaman announced that he would no longer have enough ingredients to supply the entire village and that, to control its distribution, if anyone required a vial they would need to pay in food or labour; a demand that was reluctantly accepted by some, and aggressively rejected by others. Some people accused him of taking advantage of them but soon realised that even if they were correct, they would have no other alternative, and resentfully succumbed to his demands.

It did not take long for the new law to come into effect; families were soon dividing the fruits of their labour into personal supply and fees for the Viridicure. Every week, each family would send someone to quietly trudge to the Shaman’s shop to receive what little medicine could be spared, and every week, with the dwindling supply, its price would increase. What had once been a village of 100 strong had now diminished to a meagre 60. Families saw loss to starvation, a tragedy once unknown to them, and their clothes lost their pure white radiance, stained by mud and misery.

Two months later, the Shaman had become fat and deformed off the people’s work. His arms and legs had bloated to twice their original size and his skin dead and grey. One morning, the Shaman rounded up the strongest and healthiest members of the village and asked them to build him a new house, one bigger and more beautiful, promising one full vial of medicine each once they finished. The workers did not resist his demands for even a moment, and immediately began construction. For weeks they endured without question, all the while keeping the Shaman’s promise of Viridicure firmly in their minds.

While his new home was being built, the Shaman hired a young man to guard his old shop while he watched the construction, making sure it was all to his taste. In exchange, the young man was promised two full vials of Viridicure, and was told that under no circumstances should he, or anybody for that matter, enter the Shaman’s lab.

On the third day of his watch, the young man was approached by one of his peers, a desperate young woman who begged him to let her into the Shaman’s shop.

“Please, my father is sick with Greenblight! He will die if he doesn’t get any medicine and we have nothing to offer; we have already given the Shaman all of our crops. Please, you must let me through, if I can just have a small amount of the Viridicure, he might live long enough for us to grow another batch and afford more medicine.” she pleaded

The young man saw the true desperation in her eyes; she was telling the truth. Hesitating for a moment, he anxiously scanned his surroundings for someone that might be watching.

“I’m sorry, I can’t let you through. The Shaman promised me two full vials if only I stand guard for two more days. I can’t risk getting into trouble.” he said

“You don’t understand, my father doesn’t have much longer! I was sick only yesterday and he gave me the small amount of medicine he had left. I have to do this. I can’t lose him.” she responded

At this, the young man’s empathy wrestled with his worries until they submitted. Letting out a sigh, he allowed her to enter the house and into the Shaman’s home while apprehensively standing watch outside. Finding her way into the lab, the girl found a room that, save for a bookshelf in the corner and a lonely work table holding spare beakers and equipment, had been nearly emptied. While frantically searching the room, she noticed the edge of a door frame peeking out from behind the bookcase, and tried to move it aside to no avail. Calling in the young man, who reluctantly shuffled in, they were able to push it to the side with a joint effort, revealing an ingenuous wooden door.

Both stood quietly in front of the door and shared a glance. No one had ever gone this far into the Shaman’s lab and they feared what they might see if they ventured further in. The girl went to open the door, and was met with a dull wooden staircase leading to a dimly lit chamber far at its base. Slowly descending the stairs that groaned at the slightest pressure, the girl arrived in a large basement crowded with piles of ingredients and shelves that rose from floor to ceiling.

The girl found objects, idols and articles of clothing she didn’t recognize in the nearest shelves, each meticulously placed underneath images pressed onto silver sheets of the Shaman in different towns. Hurrying down the aisles, scanning each of them as fast as she could, she arrived at the end of the room, where she found countless full jars of Viridicure.

The girl froze where she stood, unable to believe what she was seeing. The boy, who still stood upstairs, started panicking and urged her to hurry back up before someone became aware of their burglary. Snapping to her senses, she hastily grabbed a small jar of the cure from the aisle and sped back upstairs to help the young man quickly push the bookcase back into its place, knocking a few leather bound tomes out in the process. Desperately placing the books back, they were alerted by a door closing in the next room, and seconds later, the earth shaking arrival of the Shaman, whose deep crimson veins bulged underneath grey skin.

“I warned you I would know if anyone entered my lab. What have you done, boy?” he bellowed in a roar that caused the ground to shake and their legs to buckle.

Aroused by a burning rage in the pits of her stomach, the girl broke through the Shaman’s intimidation, and stood tall.

“What have you done, Shaman?” she shouted, “You’ve been hoarding the cure from us like a dragon on stolen gold. Our families have been dying, and for what? For your pleasure? The village will know about this!”

The Shaman let out a hearty laugh.

“The village will know nothing, fool! Reveal anything and I will simply cease the distribution of Viridicure. Overthrow me or kill me and the cure will run out, leaving your pathetic backwater village to fall into obscurity, just like the rest!” he spat

The rest? she thought, recollecting images of the objects and silver images in the Shaman’s basement, He’s done this before…? All the while during the commotion, the young man kneeled at the bookshelf and cowered, however, noticing a small particular volume on the floor, discreetly went to stuff it into his shirt.

“The disease is a creation of the arcane… and a disease that is born of the arcane can only be cured by the arcane.” said the Shaman, grinning devilishly. “There are none among you that know magic and there are none in this whole land that ever will! You need me.”

Hearing this, the girl fell silent and gritted her teeth. She knew there was nothing she could do, and hated herself even more for it. Rushing to her side, the young man pleaded for her to withdraw, that they shouldn't waste their lives like this. Losing all their will to fight, the Shaman stole the jar of Viridicure back and ordered the pair to leave. As they exited, they heard the Shaman's despicable laugh ringing through the house and into the village, a reminder of the fate they had unwittingly sealed themselves into.

As they walked, the girl cursed their past selves for allowing the Shaman to stay instead of turning him back, and turned to look at her accomplice, who remained silent. Once they were a hundred paces away from the house, the boy asked the girl to follow him, and led them into a field where they sat underneath an almond tree. She implored to know what was the matter, and was only met with a smile from the boy. Noticing he had been clutching something in his shirt, moved in closer to see. Grinning all the while, the young man revealed the book he had stolen during their encounter with the Shaman, and handed it to the girl. Examining the cover, she opened it and carefully skimmed through its pages, glancing dumbfoundedly between it and the young man, before closing it and laying it in her lap.

Staring the boy in the eyes, she read the cover aloud, hardly believing the words coming out of her mouth: "Diseases and Cures of the Mystical Arts".