Hemlock And The Wizard Tower (Book 1) Read online

  In response, Hemlock dropped into a prone position and crawled up slowly to the edge of the balcony so that she could peer into the full depth of the room. Since she did not have the luxury of any shadows, she figured that this was her best chance at avoiding detection.

  They had the head of the great sculpture on the floor of the large chamber, to her left, where it had been out of her view. The features of the head were not visible to her; only the back of the hair was visible and it portrayed a generous head of short, curly locks. A great hook at the end of the massive chain had been dropped onto the crown of the head where a lifting bar had been welded on–looking temporary in its incongruity with the masterwork quality of the remainder of the iron sculpture.

  She saw what appeared to be a foreman, a larger beast–man who glowered over the rest as he took cues from a Wizard at his side. The Foreman began to bark out orders as teams of beast–men made their way quickly up the scaffolding to the top of the head. Behind them lagged two especially large brutes whose weight clearly strained the scaffolding. They were sent up on either side of the head.

  Reaching the top, the brutes bore the tremendous weight of the hook on their backs in tandem with some lifting levers that the smaller beast–men manned in teams. They dragged the great hook toward its place on the lifting bar, when the foreman gave his cry to begin.

  Several wizards looked on in their brightly colored robes, looking attentively at the work being performed and often gesturing with concern to the Foreman. The brutes soon completed their task with a final grunt as the hook took purchase on the lifting bar.

  At a signal from the Foreman, some of the metallic cylinders that Hemlock saw in the corner of the chamber began to glow green, and huge white plumes of steam hissed from their upper extremities.

  The great chain was tensioned and began to lift the hook. The sculpted head began to rise and as it did so, it rotated so that the features came into view. The features depicted the face of a perfectly beautiful male youth, with a strong, chiseled face, but one which had not yet reached the full growth of maturity. It had a sneering smile on its face which Hemlock immediately thought to be quite obscene.

  She asked herself what she was witnessing here. She considered whether this was some monster that would soon be unleashed on the City?

  Her mind quickly diverted from that line of thinking, at the behest of some analytical part of her brain which had identified an opportunity.

  She was looking out over a sheer drop of almost fifty yards, from a thin balcony that extended out of an arched doorway. Before her, it appeared that there was some sort of central walkway that looked like it could rotate to her position– but it was currently rotated toward the opposite side of the room where another exit lay, across from her position.

  She hadn’t noticed any controls or other means to rotate the walkway (nor did she entertain any notions that an action like that could possibly go unnoticed).

  What she had subconsciously noted was that the path of the head on the chain would pass quite near to her position. Judging by the sweeping path that the head was taking to reach the torso, it looked like the head would afford good cover and a way to get across the room undetected.

  The head was hollow and that the mouth and nose were hollowed out. She believed that if the rotation of the head played out as she anticipated, she would have an opportunity to jump into the great mouth and crawl up into the nose before the rotation of the head would expose her to anyone in the chamber.

  It’s crazy, but this might be my only chance, she decided.

  The head loomed closer, and Hemlock was happy to see it casting a great shadow on the wall as it proceeded. She hoped that the shadow would help to conceal her jump.

  The arc of the screeching, rotating chain soon reached her and the shadow of the suspended head covered her position. It somehow managed to make the hallway feel dark despite the fact that it was still brightly lit by some mysterious force.

  The great mouth was before her then, facing her just as she had planned, and she jumped–feeling a bit like a damned soul being drawn into the mouth of some dark Overlord as she did so.

  She landed hard against the polished iron, its masterwork smoothness nearly proving her undoing. Her feet completely lost their purchase on the lower lips of the large mouth opening, and she nearly fell; she was unsure whether she simply would have fallen to her death or into some dangling position from which she would have been unavoidably visible to those below.

  Fortune was with her at that moment, however, as she managed to grip an inner nostril’s edge, hang by one arm for a moment, regain the purchase of her feet, and then draw herself up and into the nose of the sculpture.

  She noticed that the impact of her jump had caused the head to sway back and forth a little. She hoped that the effect was subtle enough to not warrant notice, as the motion of the chain was relatively jerky.

  She also noticed the wizards and the beast–men in more detail as she looked down on them through the hollow neck of the head.

  Some of the wizards seemed scared of the beast–men. These looked frail and "bookish," had clean robes, and some even had an appearance of kindness. But other wizards, leaner types in worn robes with red sashes, some balding and many carrying serrated staves or short swords, looked upon the beast–men with utter contempt. The brutes were deferential to all of the wizards.

  After a few more moments, the huge head rotated into a position near the torso and Hemlock surveyed the jump that she was going to have to make. She realized that it was going to be trickier than she had thought. She planned to wait until the head was nearly joined to the body (she presumed this was the intention of the wizards– otherwise she was going to be in a desperate situation).

  Once the head was lowered close, she was going to have to slip down and catch the edge of the Torso’s neck, quickly scramble around toward the walkway, jump down, and then dart across the walkway and into the doorway that she had seen from her former vantage point, which was now across the workshop from her.

  She knew that it was going to be a physically demanding sequence of moves. She felt confident that she could do it easily if she were fresh and with a good night’s sleep under her belt, but she knew that she was getting tired. She had been through a great deal already this night…

  Fortunately, the moment of action was upon her before her mind could become too unraveled by doubt. Because the head was rotating, the wizards had to pause it for a time above the torso. This made it relatively easy for one of Hemlock’s skill to pull off the maneuvers she had planned.

  She felt reasonably sure, as she darted through the doorway and into another oddly lit passage, that she had exposed herself to the smallest possible window of detection. She hoped that it had been small enough.

  …

  For the second time that night, reptilian eyes registered an inexplicable hint of motion. This time, however, there was a psychologically additive effect created by the repetition of the stimulus, and it made its way into the consciousness of a male, humanoid figure with the scaly body and head of a lizard. It had been talking, as it was wont to do in its heavily accented manner of speech, when suddenly its words trailed off into a hiss. Those that it had been speaking to on the balcony of the third floor of the workshop did not interject. They knew better than that (and one of their number bore the substantial mental scars resulting from a prior transgression to prove it).

  "Something is amiss, follow me," spoke the Lizard Man after a moment. He then walked off purposefully, the others following dutifully in tow, careful to avoid the long lizard tail which swept out from under his bright yellow wizard robe.

  Chapter Four

  Safreon strode across the dusty thoroughfare known as Martle Boulevard with an arm to his face to shield him from the sting of the blowing sand. Though the hour was late, there was a steady trickle of foot traffic moving about: mostly drunks and other ill-doers, and the pickpockets and thieves that preyed upon them.
r />   He was agitated and his large brow was furrowed in concern. He had gone home after Hemlock had relieved his watch. He was restless, however, as he lay in his chamber listening to the howling winds blow through the Warrens, and thinking of his argument with the girl. He tried to distract himself by working on an alchemical project. But as he sat before the glass jars and beakers, pouring, measuring, mixing, and reading from ancient tomes, he grew increasingly ill at ease.

  Finally, he surrendered to an urge to find Hemlock and make sure she wasn’t still angry with him. Safreon knew better than to ignore his forceful hunches–although they sometimes amounted to nothing. Grabbing his staff, he left his modest home and strode into the night.

  He moved through the neighborhood in a pattern designed to cover the majority of Hemlock’s favored monitoring positions. He also used their call, which was an owl’s hoot intoned in a special pattern.

  After a few hours without any sign of her, Safreon became truly concerned. This brought him to Martle Boulevard and to the doorstep of their favorite pub: the Red Imp Inn.

  As he pushed open the heavy oaken door of the pub, the characteristic smells of the Inn overtook him. A heavy scent of smoked beef mingled with beer and tobacco greeted his nose. Under normal circumstances, he always savored this smell, for this was where he, Hemlock, and other friends and allies typically gathered for merriment and relaxation.

  He noted a few slumping forms at the bar–none that he would consider friends–and the weary looking barkeep and proprietor of the place.

  The barkeep was an irascible old woman named Marta Martle. Safreon recalled that her family had owned the Inn for several generations and that the street had been named in honor of her grandfather who had led a notable monster slaying expedition, which had met with stunning success.

  Unfortunately, few of the virtues of her forebears seemed to have been passed down to Marta. She was unfriendly and at times, decidedly hostile. She viewed her lot in life with disdain; she lived each day as if she carried a great burden which one sensed that she yearned to unshoulder. But the one virtue that she had inherited was a strong work ethic and sense of duty. She couldn’t bear the thought of being remembered as the Martle who had lost the Inn and the family’s position of honor in the Warrens. It kept her going, despite her poorly disguised distaste for the role of inn keeper. Making matters worse, her only son was an unbridled drunkard, so Marta had no immediate prospects for passing on her duties.

  As Safreon approached the bar, Marta eyed him coolly.

  "Have you seen Hemlock tonight?" he asked hurriedly, immediately regretting not putting on an air of normalcy first.

  "What’s got you all tied up in knots?" asked Marta suspiciously.

  "No matter," Safreon responded in a more controlled manner. "I have a bit of news to tell her and I thought I could save some time by asking around before I begin to search."

  "I think you have me mistaken for a City clerk. I have to attend to my paying customers," Marta mumbled as she began to stride down the bar.

  "Perhaps a tip would loosen your tongue?" Safreon broke in, as he tossed a few silver pieces onto the lacquered bar top.

  Marta glanced at the silver and turned back to Safreon with a penetrating glance. "You want this information real bad–but you’re paying me real good–so here it is: I saw Hemlock tonight; about two hours ago. She came in and ordered a drink and then left. Didn’t talk to no one. There you have it–that’s all I know." She started to walk off again, cupping the silver in her hand.

  Safreon grabbed her arm and took stock of her with an incendiary gaze: "Did you notice anything… unusual?" he asked and the final word hung in the air like challenge.

  Marta glanced at Safreon’s hand on her arm. He knew that it was not something that she would have normally tolerated, but something about Safreon’s gaze held her in his sway.

  "Well, there was one thing…" she began, as some other bar customers took notice of their exchange.

  "She had a cloak on and all, but I saw her bend and it looked like she had on a pair of them wings like those strange Bird Men like to wear," Marta responded with her eyes cast skyward in recollection.

  Safreon didn’t need more than a moment to be gripped with a terrible feeling, bordering on terror. “You mean the settlers from Tanna Varra?" he exclaimed.

  "Yes, them bluish folk. Now get your hands off me before I call Horace!" Marta spit, recovering her usual demeanor.

  Safreon recoiled and sat at the bar for a moment, mouth agape, considering the implications of this information. He knew that Hemlock desperately wanted to move against the Wizards, and he had to accept that her possession of the wings could be more than mere coincidence.

  He hadn’t yet confided in her that he had a contact within their ranks, and that certain political factions within the wizards were struggling to control the future of the Guild. Safreon knew that the wizards could be a threat to the Warrens. In fact, he even suspected that they were responsible for the faltering magic in the neighborhood of late. He was working with his contact in the Guild to discover if that was true.

  Yet he hadn’t shared this information with Hemlock. Despite her burgeoning powers, he still worried about her headstrong nature. He feared that she lacked the self-control, at her relatively young age, to use her power responsibly, and so he often delivered information and training to her in measured doses. He felt it kept pace with her maturation process.

  As he sat on that barstool in the Red Imp Inn, however, he was assailed with the undeniable feeling that he had made a grievous error in judgment in not sharing the information with Hemlock. He had seen the waves of worry that had passed over her each time their conversation had turned to her sister and her struggles with her health. And he recalled now the determined look in her eyes as she had proposed moving directly against the wizards.

  There was no reason for Hemlock to need those Tanna Varran wings besides as a tool to cross the Moat of Acid surrounding the Tower of the Wizard Guild! She had moved forward with her plan without him!

  Suddenly, he surged off the barstool and sprinted for the door–knocking over a tipsy bar patron in the process, who swore before he recognized the source of his upheaval.

  There was only one way that Safreon could realistically help Hemlock, and it could only work if Hemlock had delayed the execution of her plan or, by some miracle, had actually entered the Tower and gone undetected up to this point. He knew that he had to contact the wizard known as Gwineval, and hope that he would be willing and able to get to Hemlock before any of the other inhabitants of the Tower discovered her.

  …

  The wizard Gwineval was concerned. He had noticed an unusual occurrence within the secure walls of the Tower. If his senses hadn’t deceived him (and since his "augmentation," they had been so acute as to warrant little doubt that he had seen something), there was someone or something loose in the Tower.

  His reptilian tongue flicked over rows of serrated teeth as he walked purposefully through the great new Oberon distillery that had recently been completed in the Tower–his two subordinates fearfully in tow. He felt a twinge of guilt for having mistreated them recently. Lately, he was having violent flares of anger–no doubt a side effect of his recent transformation. As a Wizard of the fifth circle, he had chosen to devote himself to the discipline of magical body augmentation and conversion. He had chosen to augment himself with reptilian abilities, for he fancied the cunning and calm nature of the lizard. And he had always feared water and had hoped to be cured of that fear, which he was. The transformation had many effects: most positive, but some undeniably negative as well. The ironic magnification of his anger and a general loss of patience were those new qualities that he considered negative, and they surprised him since he had expected an opposite effect in these areas.

  As he walked, he couldn’t help but marvel at the distillery. There were vast numbers of cast iron boilers used to purify the Oberon – huge pumps to move it from stage to stage i
n the process, and enchanted bellows that would soon rain a byproduct of Green Dragon fire down over the boiling vats to distill the Oberon down to its powdery essence. All of these machines were idle–merely waiting for the final component of the wizards’ plans to increase the Oberon harvest to reach maturity.

  His thoughts turned to the history of the Oberon for a moment. The wizards laced their food with the powder and at times, even consumed it undiluted. It was like consuming raw magical energy–an energy that had to be expended, lest it begin to stress the body of the Wizard like a trapped demon spirit. A Wizard fully dosed on Oberon could harness ten times the magical power that he could without Oberon. And the most powerful could harness ten times again that power for specific types of particularly powerful effects.

  The City was reliant on magic and the wizards already controlled access to the most potent magic in the Realm, despite the altruistic leanings of well-intentioned wizards like himself.

  Their plan was to use new Harvester golems to fully exploit the Oberon supply in the Witch Crags. Some wizards had argued for patience in the pursuit of the final stages of the plan. Others, emboldened by prior successes, favored immediate and aggressive use of the harvesting machines.

  Looking at this part of the vast operation nearing completion, Gwineval felt confident that once the wizards perfected their new harvesting techniques, all magic in the realms of the City would fall under their complete control. They would have enough Oberon to power detection spells that could spread for a radius of the entire realm. They would persecute anyone who used magic without direct consent of the Guild. There were plans to establish local enforcement networks to monitor and quickly react to any unregulated magic use. All spell casting would be completely regulated and the real threat of enforcement would provide complete compliance. Their power would transcend all other powers in the City. It would only be a matter of time before they enjoyed the full benefits of magical hegemony.