Hemlock And The Dread Sorceress (Book 3)

by B Throwsnaill

  He slowly regained his wits as the group began to emerge from the depths of the vast cloud. His first impulse was to break into a run, but he knew some of the men behind him were still too close to the gas. He waited until they were all several score yards from the edge of the cloud then urged them into a fast jog.

  As he ran, his thoughts returned to the hourglass he had seen inside the blue damp. Its appearance seemed to mirror his concerns about running out of time on the issue of the wizards. He dismissed it as a hallucination.

  After many long and tiring minutes of running, the glaring light of day smashed the cocoon of underground darkness that enclosed Gorf and his crew. Even after his many years of mining, the sensation of emerging from the dark mine was still jarring.

  “Smitty!” he cried, directing the old miner to tend to the golem. “Start up the fans first and wait two hours before hauling up the cars. We hit blue damp down there—a lot of it!”

  Gorf cursed again under his breath. He expected danger in the market today, not in his mine. But danger was never far away in the mine.

  His crew chief approached him as the grumbling crew gathered around the waiting cars.

  “The lads aren’t happy about having to lug the shipment to the market themselves,” said the chief.

  “Well, isn’t that a shame,” said Gorf unsympathetically. “That’s how we did it for thirty years. It will be good for them—toughen them up.”

  Within the hour, the burly miners struggled to push the mining cars across a long, flat section of track. The wood and iron track extended between two adjacent mountain peaks held aloft by a long bridge span. The track led into the valley that lay at the edge of the mountain to the west of Gorf’s mine.

  A long line of miners and mining cars were queued ahead of Gorf. He cast dark looks at the miners ahead of him, who mostly tended to a single car themselves. He then glanced downward and to his left. Another track twisted around a nearby mountain on top of a comparatively flimsy-looking series of adhoc supports.

  Gorf shook his head. Despite the known dangers of the lower track, he wondered if he might have to start using it.

  "Don't even think about it, Gorf," said a booming voice from his right. It was a heavyset man who wore fine, white linens which contrasted the dark, functional clothing of the miners around him.

  "Lampeer, well met. But what of this delay?"

  The heavyset man smiled. "Every rube with a mine car wants to use my line now. The downhill brakes in the tunnel take time to navigate. Those fool wizards made me lower my price, and I thought it would ruin me. Little did I know, it would do quite the opposite!"

  "But, Lampeer, this delay will ruin me. I still have another load for today's market waiting in my mine. Can I pay you more to get to the front of the line?"

  Lampeer's smile faded, and he leaned in closer to Gorf. "I make fun of the wizards, but this Jalis and his laws are no joke." A pudgy arm emerged from under Lampeer's robe and pointed across the span to a broad ledge that met the track at the end of the bridge. Upon the ledge stood a large, black, rune-covered obelisk.

  "You see that?" continued Lampeer in a hushed voice. "I saw that thing burn a man alive yesterday. Afterward, a strange voice came from it and said the man had stolen. I'll be danged if anyone saw a thing, but there you go. I'm not breaking the law, though. No, sir."

  "This is madness. It all sounded good when these rebel wizards came in and said they would make us safer then gave us the golems to help us mine. But these laws! They keep adding more, and the more they add, the more things get fouled up!" cried Gorf.

  Lampeer looked around him nervously before responding.

  "I know, friend. But what can we do? Their obelisks are all over the range now. We agreed to be bound by their laws. And we've tried to talk to them about things. But they are wizards. They don't listen."

  Gorf’s features darkened as he replied, “I have something in mind that they’ll pay attention to.”

  Lampeer paled to a shade even whiter than his already pasty skin tone.

  “I must take my leave of you, Gorf,” he said with some gravity.

  Gorf suddenly feared that the man could be a wizard informant. He’d known Lampeer for decades, but something in the man’s cadence concerned Gorf.

  Somewhat rattled, he called the crew chief to his side.

  “Look, I’ve got the men’s axes stowed here along with my war hammer.”

  The chief looked on expectantly, not appearing to recognize the implications of Gorf’s statement.

  “If anything happens today,” Gorf continued, “I need you and your men behind me. Do you understand?”

  Recognition dawned in the chief’s eyes. “What are you expecting to happen?” he asked.

  “Don’t concern yourself with it. Tell the men that if anything unusual happens today, there’s ten gold in it for each one that stands with me. Tell them, but be discreet. Don’t let anyone sound off about it or spread rumors. I’m gonna walk up the line here and talk to some folks. You let me know how it went when I get back.”

  “Okay, boss,” said the chief.

  Gorf spent the next half hour talking with the other miners in the line. Many were his friends, most knew him, and everyone treated him with the respect his reputation afforded him. When he returned to his cars, his men looked edgy.

  The chief came forward.

  “I think the men are behind you. Nobody here likes what happened to Murphy. We know what needs to be done.”

  “Good,” said Gorf. Every miner he’d spoken to had a similar reaction. The stage was set for his unlikely rebellion. Runners left from many groups to retrieve weapons and armor. He would give the signal in the market.

  After an hour of anxiously waiting, during which the miners armed themselves, Gorf and his cars paid their passage and wound down the twisting tunnel. They emerged into a typically busy day in the market. Many merchants from the City gathered around a large stage where commodity certificates were being auctioned off. Miners, merchants, and the henchmen of both mingled in a crowd while the wizards and their hired hands glared at them from the stage as they collected their tax.

  Gorf was pleased to see Jalis himself standing prominently on the stage. The short, fat leader of the wizards was arrogant and annoying. Gorf put his cars into a stall and led his men toward the assembly.

  “Two gold, fifty silver per hundred weight!” cried the auctioneer. But Gorf’s baritone voice rose above the clamor.

  “Jalis!” he cried, pointing and approaching the front of the stage.

  The auctioneer looked puzzled. All eyes were on Gorf and his war hammer. He reached the steps that led to the stage and climbed them solemnly. One of Jalis’ thugs tried to restrain him, but Gorf simply hurled the man off the stage with little effort.

  With his jowls coiled in anger, Jalis stepped forward, brandishing his wizard staff, which glowed menacingly.

  “What is the meaning of this?” cried Jalis.

  “We’ve had enough of you wizards and your rules! You are to leave this valley at once and never return.”

  “Is that right?” replied Jalis, looking behind him at his assembled men. There were eight of his hired thugs and one other wizard with him.

  The short wizard placed his hand to his mouth and produced a shrill whistle that called reinforcements from behind the stage curtain. Another wizard emerged with twenty more men armed with swords and shields.

  Gorf remained still. He hoped for a peaceful resolution, but his hopes were diminishing. By his calculation, at least sixty armed men were in the crowd waiting for his signal. But he wasn’t sure it would be enough against the three wizards.

  A plan formed in his head to eliminate the wizards himself. This would encourage his men. The only problem with the plan would be escaping the twenty eight hostile fighters around him. But he had a plan for that, as well.

  Jalis provided the opening Gorf was looking for. He watched the wizard surveying the crowd and noticing the axes and h
ammers carried by many of the miners. The wizard reacted by trying to negotiate with him.

  “You seem like a reasonable man. If you have grievances, come backstage and discuss them with me,” said Jalis in a condescending voice.

  Gorf feigned uncertainty, but found the eyes of his chief in the crowd. He nodded to the chief and lowered his hammer. He walked toward Jalis, appearing repentant. The hostile men around Gorf moved to restrain him, but Jalis conceitedly waved them off.

  As Gorf reached the vicinity of the wizard leader, the two other wizards, who were shaved bald and covered in tattoos, approached.

  In a sudden movement, Gorf slammed one wizard in the abdomen with the top of his war hammer and absorbed a punch from the one whose tattoos glowed fiercely with magic. It was the hardest blow he had ever felt from a man. But Gorf had been hit in the head by many boulders over the years and was able to shrug it off. The wizard let his guard down, expecting his powerful punch to have felled the larger man. Quickly regaining his balance, Gorf brought the haft of his hammer forward and caught the tattooed wizard in the jaw, knocking him out cold. The other tattooed wizard groaned on the stage, while the enemy thugs closed ranks around a retreating Jalis.

  A great cry rose from the crowd as angry miners surged up the stairs to defend their de facto leader.

  Gorf dodged a sword thrust and kicked the prone wizard hard in the head as a melee broke out on stage.

  Thugs surrounded him, but Gorf swung his hammer with a ferocity and strength that caused many of the thugs to take a defensive posture.

  He heard the cries of the wounded and dying men around him as the fight continued.

  A bold thug engaged Gorf at close range with a short sword and opened up a large cut on his chest. The thug paid for his boldness. Gorf shouldered into the man and knocked him off balance. Unable to defend himself from the next crushing blow, the thug’s head burst into a bloody mess as Gorf leveled him with his hammer.

  The tide of the battle seemed to be with Gorf and the miners. Many of the thugs had fallen or run behind the curtain, hiding from relentless attacks.

  But then Gorf noticed something unusual happening at the edges of the stage. First, he thought the wood itself was undulating with some strange magic. To his horror, he saw malformed shapes in dark, beguiling cloaks rising to their feet around the perimeter of the stage.

  The miners halted and the thugs ran as the visages of the newcomers fully formed. These were not men, but animated remnants of men—collections of bones and decayed flesh summoned into motion by evil.

  Jalis strutted from behind the curtain and stood with two of the monsters that advanced to protect him.

  “You fools! Did you think your physical prowess could defy our magic? Behold the Seekers—ancient wizards now reunited with a common cause behind our master. Care to test yourselves against them?”

  The miners waited, and many a fearful glance was made toward Gorf.

  Gorf suddenly thought of Hilda, his children and his mine. A great sorrow threatened to quench his fiery resolve, but his unwavering honor sustained him at the last moment. His jaw stiffened and he stepped forward.

  “Aye,” he cried wildly, “that we do, wizard scum!”

  The miners rallied at his words, and their hearts filled with determination.

  Jalis laughed as Gorf charged the abominations that stood between him and the wizard.

  Gorf burst through the shadowy guards. Astonished, Jalis jumped sideways to avoid him. The creatures weren’t solid like a normal man—though they did have mass. Where he collided with their forms, Gorf felt an icy cold sensation on his skin as weakness crept into his arms and shoulders. The two monsters moved on him with flashing ghostly blades. Gorf was forced to give ground under their assault, receiving two wounds to his arms which further weakened him.

  Gathering his courage, he tried to strike one of the creatures. To his surprise, he found that his war hammer now felt impossibly heavy in his hands. He was unable to wield it effectively.

  His heart sank as he heard the dying cries of the other miners on the stage. Dropping his hammer, he leapt at one of the skeletons in front of him, careless of the cutting strike of the other as he passed it. A sword bit into his side as he grasped the skull of the dark creature and pulled it to his chest. The skull had a strange, insubstantial feeling. Gorf’s arms were weakened, but his strength had not completely left him. He clenched his muscles with a desperate bear hug as he heard more men dying.

  The skull gave way and shattered in his grasp. The slain creature dissolved before his eyes, but his triumph was short lived. In the next moment, a shimmering blade burst through his back and emerged from his stomach.

  The blade was withdrawn as Gorf screamed in anguish. He fell to his knees and a terrible chill overcame his entire body. He knelt for several minutes, unmoving, as he witnessed the horrifying deaths of his remaining comrades. Even those who fled the stage were pursued and slain in short order.

  Suddenly, he received a solid kick to his back and he hit the wooden floor hard.

  “It’s fitting that you witnessed it all,” said Jalis from behind him. “This is your fault. The lives of all those men are your responsibility. It didn’t have to be like this, you fool. You should have followed orders like the other camps.”

  Gorf was unable to answer. His body was under terrible distress, but the fuzziness of shock had mercifully taken hold, and he was becoming increasingly numb. He hoped Hilda would leave for her mother’s home.

  Word must reach her, he thought with a sudden desperation.

  “Jalis, listen to you. You are quite the sentimentalist, mmmmm?” said a different voice from the direction of the short wizard. Fear for his family had overtaken the numbness Gorf had been feeling, and he was more aware in the ensuing moments. He felt the terrible corpses assembling around him.

  “Sir, I… I didn’t realize you had arrived. I was… It’s just unfortunate. The loss of life was unnecessary and caused by this headstrong fool, here,” said Jalis.

  “On the contrary,” said the unidentified voice. “I consider this a great boon. Moments like this are how we establish our new order. Lift him up so I can see him.”

  Impossibly cold hands reached under Gorf’s arms and lifted him roughly to his knees.

  A strange apparition appeared before Gorf. It wasn’t horrifying like the other skeletal forms, but its beautiful features were gripped by a cruel expression. It was a man dressed in curiously old-fashioned finery and appearing to be in the prime of his adulthood. He had curly, light hair that hung down from under a tricorne hat and surrounded his pale face.

  “I am Sub-Imperator DuLoc, vermin—soon to be the new Emperor of the City and harbinger of a new golden age of law. Your foolish resistance to the rule of law will serve as a lesson to your comrades. Jalis, send the Seekers out to every home and settlement in this valley. Kill everything that is living. Men, women, children, pets—leave nothing alive. This will teach the others to be obedient.”

  Gorf raged at these words, but his body was broken and didn’t respond to his will.

  “But, but… even the children, sir?” stuttered Jalis.

  “Absolutely! Jalis, you really must work on this empathy you seem to suffer from. The business of governance doesn’t countenance weakness!”

  “Of course, sir. But what about the implications of this attack? Many merchants witnessed the fight. Should we track them down as they flee back to the City?”

  “No, let them return.”

  “To...Hemlock?”

  “To Hemlock. It matters not. My return to the City is now imminent, and we’ve built enough obelisks to resist any attack she and her friends might mount. They might learn how to use magic to fight the obelisks in time, but by then, I will have returned. And then the law will sweep her aside like a fly.”

  “It will be glorious, sir!”

  Tears streamed down Gorf’s face as he lay dying. RUN! he screamed over and over in his mind, wishing against
hope that somehow Hilda would hear him.

  Chapter One

  Hemlock stood atop the Wizard Tower and watched the sunrise. In her mind’s eye, she envisioned the distant sphere of Maker's Fire that people knew as their sun soaring silently through the void around the City. She took a moment to marvel at the daily traversal of that ball of fire. Every morning, some force of creation caused it to coalesce and separate from the huge mass of Maker's Fire that the City sailed upon. She looked down over the people that had already taken to the streets of the City on early business. How many of them appreciated the miracle of their sun?

  It’s too easy for them to be swept away in the day's illusion and ignore the mundane miracles around them. But I guess it’s a question of perspective.

  Hemlock was the only person she knew that could see directly into the vast and strange void that existed beyond the sky.

  What would the world be like if everyone could see what I see?

  She heard a whooshing sound as the heavy glass door to the atrium opened behind her. The door closed as soft footsteps approached her.

  “How are you this morning, Gwineval?” she asked without looking at him. The early morning activity of the City still held her attention.

  “I am well but somewhat troubled. First, these reports from the mountains arrive, and now this visit by the Griffin. I fear our old comrade, Jalis, has finally played his cards.”

  “He’s a fool, then. We’ll deal with him. Penelope has sought us out before. Perhaps she has news for us. Or, perhaps, she’s slain the fool wizard herself.”

  Even as the words left her mouth, Hemlock knew they wouldn’t turn out to be true. The adversary she’d hoped to avoid for a while longer again dominated her thoughts.

  Can’t I have a few more months of peace?

  “But Jalis understands the forces arrayed against him, Hemlock. He’s cowardly but not stupid. He must have a plan to deal with us if he’s openly moving against us. That’s what concerns me.”

  She considered confessing her fears to Gwineval, but suspected that DuLoc was on his mind as well. They hadn’t spoken of the threatening apparition since Gwineval decided to destroy the Wand of the Imperator that she found in the Witch Crags.