Hemlock And The Wizard Tower (Book 1) Read online

  After a few more experiments, she felt confident she could cross the thirty yard width of the moat.

  She returned to the shadow of the hovel and realized the moment for the final decision had arrived. She was surprised to feel her doubts wash away in the face of it.

  It just feels right!

  That was enough for her. She jogged toward the Moat and then accelerated as she mouthed the magic word to activate the wings. She raised her arms and leaned forward, and in a moment the strange green fluid was passing below her feet. She thought about trying to fly to the top of the Tower, but as she did so, a sudden gust of wind spoiled her flight.

  She began rolling uncontrollably and losing height. She didn’t know how to compensate. She raised her arms frantically, but because she’d rolled to her side, the motion caused her to dip toward the glistening surface of the Moat. She recoiled her arms as the distant shore approached. She had no hope of regaining control—only that she had enough momentum to carry her over the acid.

  Fortunately, she did. She hit the ground on the other side, mere feet from the Moat’s edge. But she landed hard and rolled onto her back. The wings twisted and broke under the strain of the fall.

  She rose and sprinted several yards until she reached the base of the Tower. As she removed the remnants of the wings, she looked all around for signs of detection.

  The night was still quiet, and only the faint howling of a distant wolf interrupted it.

  Her adrenaline was pumping as she considered her next course of action. She knew the gatehouse was to her right as she stood with her back on the cold granite of the Wizard Tower. Everyone knew the gatehouse was protected by the Drawbridge of Ninety-Nine Tears. As she scampered around the Tower toward the gatehouse, she remembered the legend.

  The Drawbridge was named for an apocryphal event that had taken place in the early, formative years of the current age of the City. According to the tale, there had been a faction in the Elite citizenry that had been wary of the influence the Wizard Guild had been gaining over City politics. A legislative power play had been made in the Senate, which would have regulated the use of Magic and outlawed the Wizard Guild—or any organized group of Magic Users, for that matter, who would not have agreed to be "supervised" by City government authorities. The Wizard’s Guild had reacted quickly and decisively.

  The Senate members, who intended to unanimously pass the measure to institute the new regulations, had numbered ninety-nine. Each had been abducted on the night prior to the passing of the legislation; some had been abducted by means of sorcery and others had been taken by more conventional means. For six days and nights, nothing had been seen or heard from the ninety-nine abductees, and no means had been found to enter or communicate with the occupants of the Wizard Tower.

  Finally, on the seventh day, the Drawbridge had been lowered, and the ninety-nine Senators had been impaled on long gleaming spears which had been arrayed in two rows running up and down the length of the long wooden platform. All ninety-nine had been near death, and appeared to be dying of thirst; their bodies were horribly desiccated. Though the Drawbridge had been down, no desperate relatives, city guards, or any force had been able to cross onto the Drawbridge to intervene on behalf of the ninety-nine. Then, from within the Tower, a great chant was heard, as if each wizard had chanted in unison under the power of some mysterious amplification.

  "Know this: each of these ninety-nine has been complicit in crimes against our Guild. We will not abide those with hostile intent towards us. Each of these shall die upon the Drawbridge unless they can shed a single tear to atone for their crimes. Ninety-nine tears shall be the sum total of our required penance for these crimes. The alternative is death."

  Each of the ninety-nine Senators had perished soon after these words were spoken, for none had been able to muster the single tear required, though those who had some small remaining pool of energy had cried out, tearlessly and pathetically, at their fate.

  Hemlock couldn’t help but shudder a bit as she beheld the drawbridge and thought about its legend. It was closed, but there was a slight gap at the top, where its edge met a stone gatehouse. The gatehouse extended outward from the Tower proper at a height of almost twenty-five yards. The shafts of the spears, which were mounted on the drawbridge, were visible through this gap, and gave it an appearance not unlike a crude mouth, facing upwards towards the sky, punctuated by thin wooden teeth.

  She had a rope and a small grappling hook with her, which she pulled out of her backpack. She secured her hook through the gap and onto the very spears which were described in the story of the drawbridge. It was those same spears she used as handholds to slip through the gap and into the interior side. She then climbed back down the inside using those same shafts.

  That was almost too easy!

  She had progressed farther into the Tower than anyone she had ever heard tell of. Perhaps even this much progress, should she fail, would earn her a place in song and folklore: at least in the Warrens. She shook her head and quickly dismissed any thoughts of failure.

  Then she thought sadly of Safreon, and how his countenance lately seemed to be aging before her eyes. She’d watched him living his life in the constant sorrow of martyrdom; he didn't seem to derive much joy from his existence, despite the appreciation of many people he had helped and mentored. In her estimation, he, above most others, deserved happiness in return for his sacrifices.

  A portcullis stood before her as tall as two of the tallest men in the City combined, and the iron was black, cunningly curved and slick with moisture. It was spiked downward at the bottom, and outward along its surface, with a number of cruel, upturned barbs. It looked massively heavy.

  Hemlock began to despair. How she could have assumed she’d be able to gain entry into the Tower once she got past the drawbridge? She felt naive and foolish.

  The Portcullis seemed to loom larger in front of her. She experienced a vision suddenly, of her flesh suspended on those upturned spikes.

  The spikes glistened invitingly in the darkness. She was sure they could easily support her weight if they were properly embedded in her flesh. Maybe it would be a relief to come to such an end. At least it would show she had stubbornly tried to climb the obstacle and had never wavered or considered retreat.

  Safreon and Mercuria would be devastated at her loss, but she also knew they would eventually go on with their lives. And she thought they would have been proud of her, after years of recollection, each in their own way.

  She caught herself, as she realized she was crouched and ready to spring up and run at the Portcullis!

  It was odd she didn't remember consciously planning to do anything like that.

  In some instinctive way, she realized she had actually been preparing to impale herself on those upturned spikes, just as she’d imagined herself doing in her melancholy thoughts of the past few minutes.

  Of course, the Portcullis of Infinite Sorrow!

  She’d been so relieved to get past the drawbridge she’d been caught unawares by the Tower’s next legendary defense. She became aware of the emotion emanating from the Portcullis then; it washed over her like a slap in the face: feelings of sorrow and despair were rolling over her mind, and they were almost incalculably strong.

  She had to act decisively, as she realized this was the strongest magic spell she’d ever encountered.

  The Portcullis stood at the end of a shallow tunnel, with an arched roof of masonry formed by the line rendered by the top of the Portcullis, where it met the wall. There was nothing to climb to, and there was no way to climb over. The seam where the Portcullis met the upper masonry was impenetrable.

  She noted the space behind the Portcullis for the first time. It was a shadowy hallway, which was a continuation of the one housing the Portcullis. At the end of it, perhaps twenty feet further, there was a pair of large, ornate wooden doors. Between the doors and the inside of the Portcullis, Hemlock beheld the legendary Demonic Gargoyles.

  It
was said the Gargoyles had been animated from the rafters of the Hall of the Senate on the Night of Ninety-Nine Tears, and they had taken hostage two of the strongest fighters of the City, who were also Senators. It was also said they had since rested in eternal guard of the Wizard Tower, and any intruder that managed to defy impossible odds and cross the Moat, enter the Drawbridge, and penetrate the Portcullis, would be torn to bits by them.

  Their forms were winged and composed of smooth gray granite. Their hindquarters were powerful, their hands tipped with talons, and their wings were massive and folded. Their faces were grinning death masks with exaggerated, animalistic features. They inspired an instinctive urge for flight in Hemlock (though it felt weaker than the melancholy attraction of the Portcullis) as she fell under their gaze.

  Though they betrayed no properties beyond that of normal stone statues, she felt she was being stalked by cunning and merciless predators.

  The sorrow that had almost overcome her moments before returned with a renewed force, and overshadowed the fear inspired by the Gargoyles. It was a two-pronged mental assault of fear and melancholy.

  She needed to act decisively.

  She considered the Gargoyles would surely attack her if she somehow managed to get inside the Portcullis. She assumed they would eviscerate her in short order, and the wizards would find her remains in that hallway some days henceforth, and would wonder what impetuous soul had ventured that far within their defenses.

  She also considered she really didn’t have any means to bypass the Portcullis. She had a file in her set of lockpicks, but it was small and it would take her weeks to file through that iron. She judged she only had minutes to spare. The temptation of capitulating to the Portcullis railed against her self-control mercilessly, and it held an attractive promise: an end of suffering.

  She quickly realized there could be only one solution. She considered an idea that the only force that could possibly open or destroy the Portcullis was the Gargoyles. She wondered whether the wizards had thought of that possibility. She felt her life depended on their having overlooked it.

  She assumed the Gargoyles would animate if she entered their side of the hallway. The Portcullis prevented this: but not completely.

  She ran up to the Portcullis, and focused her mind completely on resisting the melancholy as she embraced the cruel iron and extended her limbs through the spaces between the bars.

  If her initial plan didn’t work, she knew she would soon be hanging from those spikes in a willing, dying embrace.

  Her hands extended to their full length and reached out toward the Gargoyles. She supported herself with her upper arms as they pressed against the cold bars, and took a low stance, as she also extended her legs through the bars and touched the ground on the other side of the Portcullis with her feet.

  The Gargoyles awoke. Their eyes glowed with an anti–light which appeared as some sort of active darkness. They didn't move at first, but all the same, she felt the awakened presence of a great coiled energy, which was building in intensity.

  In the space of one breath, the Gargoyles sprung— her mind registered the motion; her entire being shouted out a single message that reverberated through her consciousness and was able to drown out even the bittersweet, tragic melancholy of the Portcullis.

  JUMP BACK!

  She launched backwards into a tumbling somersault as greedy talons rended the ground where her legs had been half a moment before.

  The Gargoyles were terrible in their rage, and they seemed to know their prey was close at hand. One, and then the other, grasped the slick iron bars, which now separated them from their kill; and with a frenzied effort of unimaginable strength, they began to bend the bars askew.

  The iron groaned. Perhaps the Portcullis itself groaned, as if imbued with some fell awareness. Hemlock wasn't sure. Despite the terrible groaning, the Gargoyles steadily bent the iron until they made enough space for their bulk to pass through.

  Sheathing their wings tightly around their bodies, they crawled through the openings.

  She’d made her final gamble and now had to await the result passively. And, as was usual for her gambles, the stakes were nothing less than her very survival.

  As the Gargoyles gained purchase on her side of the Portcullis, they slowly moved toward her, menacingly, as if they were savoring the moment of her death.

  She rapidly realized their speed and their strength were far beyond her reckoning. She could not evade them or jump past them–even with her excellent reflexes.

  But then it happened. The Gargoyles slowed and then turned around, in a shuffling gait, back toward the Portcullis. They embraced it, their great arms outstretched grotesquely; and as they did so, their forms reverted to smooth, unmoving stone.

  And then she felt something else. She was totally alone again with the melancholy of the Portcullis. The Gargoyles were just regular stone once more, as she sensed their magical spirits had been seized in some way by the seductive malice of those glistening iron bars.

  Risking the icy touch of the Portcullis one final time, she crept through one of the openings that had been made by the Gargoyles, and approached the heavy wooden doors of the Tower itself. As she stepped beyond the Portcullis, it felt like stepping out of a bitterly cold night into a warm homestead. With a feeling of relief, she realized the Portcullis’ magic did not affect the Tower side of the hallway.

  Recklessly, she touched the double doors, and she did not detect any magic. She surveyed what appeared to be some conventional locks, which would take little time for her to pick.

  Nothing stirred within the Wizard Tower, even after the heavy footfalls of the Gargoyles had resonated over the surrounding moat during the recent encounter.

  But at that moment, unbeknownst to her, a robed figure was moving about the outside of the Tower on a seventh floor balcony. It lingered above the drawbridge for a time, looked down, and then retired within the mysterious confines of the Tower.

  She soon stood in an ornate entrance hall, which extended upward five stories, and was finished with elegant mahogany walls and great, multi–story tapered windows of opaque glass bordered with pale marble. Twin carpeted staircases crisscrossed the space and wound upward, providing access to the four visible floors above.

  The beautiful woodwork of the hall felt oppressive, as if she’d entered into the belly of some ancient sailing ship, preserved in funereal majesty, resting deep on the floor of an ancient sea.

  She quickly gathered her wits, realizing that staring at her surroundings was a good way for her to end up being discovered and captured.

  Hemlock’s goal was to ascend to the seventh floor of the Tower. She figured whatever force was siphoning magical energy from the Warrens district would most likely be situated there for maximum effect. And she had noticed (as had many in the City), that strange lights and dweomers were seen to dance above the Wizard Tower in recent weeks.

  Don’t the wizards realize the lights look a little suspicious and that people notice these things? Are the wizards so detached from reality they don’t consider what people observe?

  The stairs rose before her, the warmth of their mahogany railings enhancing their welcoming expanse, which Hemlock perceived being in stark opposition to the danger she knew would surely await her if she dared to take them. Subtlety would be required for success—she couldn’t simply climb up those stairs and expect a warm reception from the wizards. She hoped alternative means to ascend might exist.

  She had to be cautious, just in case the wizards had been crafty enough to trap the interior of the Tower, despite her hunches they might not do so. She hadn’t survived as long as she had in the streets of the Warrens by being naïve.

  The entry hall contained two large wooden doors, located slightly ahead of her, and offset to her left and right. Also, hidden somewhat in shadow under the balcony of the second floor above was a smaller door, dimly lit by flickering lamps on either side, and showing no visible doorknob or locking mechanism. />
  Service entrance.

  With a final, almost feral glance to the stories above, she silently darted across the floor, and with a graceful turn, halted, back to the wall, beside this smaller door.

  The wall at her back pulsed in an abnormal rhythm. This wasn’t something she had expected or could react to instinctively. She considered her course of action, conscious that precious time was elapsing and every moment spent in the open hall was a risk to her.

  After feeling them for a time, Hemlock noted a pattern to the rhythms, and a distinct but faint hiss that sounded at a regular interval in the complex pattern. She wondered whether the source of the vibration was some sort of automata. Though automata were often not threatening, she weighed the risk of the likelihood of a trap or some other dark outcome waiting for her, should she pass through the small door.

  Voices, she thought, as her ears registered new sounds from above.

  Footsteps on the stairs above. Three voices: two elderly and reflective; one hissing, forceful. Third or Fourth floor, probably. Descending. No time. Choose. Or die.

  She moved sideways, catlike, to stand in front of the small door, straddling its width and feeling methodically along its surface. The echoing sounds of footsteps and voices above on the stairs indicated the rate of their descent was somewhat slower than she’d first thought.

  Thank goodness for the old timers. Their doddering footsteps came slowly. She pictured them grasping a railing while they walked. She returned her focus to locating a latch or other hidden mechanism.

  As she concentrated on the rhythmic pattern that emanated from behind the door, she noticed a spell warding it. It had been well concealed and subtle, and she hadn’t noticed it immediately, wasting precious seconds.

  She had to risk entry despite the machinery beyond the door. Hemlock focused on the spell. It manifested to her as a subtle mixture of anticipation, defensiveness, and paranoia. It radiated from the middle of the door, and she felt a certain geometry to it: it had an ordered nature and some dimensionality.