“Gwineval, I know you’re mad, but that’s just silly. You’d be playing right into their hands.”
“Perhaps, but maybe we’d be better off falling in line than resisting. At least DuLoc seems to offer a well-orchestrated strategy, while we flail about according to your whims!”
“We’re not allying with Jalis, Gwineval,” said Miara sternly. “Hemlock, why not join our attack on Jalis first then go on your expedition?”
“I’m sorry, but so much of what I do is based on instinct. I realize it’s hard to have faith in me, but I just know that I need to leave now. There won’t be time to do it if I wait.”
“It would only be a week or two!” said Gwineval.
“I’m sorry. I can’t wait. It has to be now. It’s like we’re all part of a song. If some of the notes falter, the entire melody is lost. It feels like that when I think about the future. This has to be done immediately.”
Hemlock wasn’t sure why she felt so strongly about the timing of her departure, since she had only come up with the idea the prior day, but she had a strong feeling about it and had never been more certain about a choice in her life.
“So, what should we do?” said Gwineval, sounding defeated.
“I still think you should attack,” said Hemlock.
“What would we be doing if we were Jalis?” said Renevos.
“A good question. If I were him, I would be looking at the southern farmlands next. First, starve the City of raw materials then go after the food supply,” said Lalpa.
“Yes,” said Miara, “there is logic in that. If Jalis has already fortified the mountains, he’d probably welcome an attack there. Especially if his forces were already on the move in the south, but with a less secure position there.”
“Have we heard anything unusual from the south?” asked Gwineval.
“No, but Jalis did a remarkable job of covering his tracks in the mountains before he struck. Perhaps we need to send a few smaller teams to investigate,” said Brannor.
The ensuing moments were silent, though the tension in the room was unrelenting.
When Gwineval rose, his shoulders were slumped and his eyes downcast. “Let us adjourn this meeting and consider the working plan. The plan sounds prudent to me given the unusual circumstances. We will meet again tomorrow, though I assume it will be without our would-be leader.”
“I’m sorry, everyone. You’ll understand when I get back,” Hemlock said and left the room without looking at any of the wizards. She couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in their eyes.
Chapter Two
A chalky sky clung stubbornly overhead as dusk descended over the marketplace. Hemlock knelt beside Tored in the shadow of a building which was located a short distance from the market. Since they thought the magic of the vials was being used to nullify Hemlock’s magic detection, they anticipated there would also be lookouts trying to follow her movements. Therefore, they abandoned their normal habits of rooftop observation in favor of a more conventional, yet, hopefully unanticipated, vantage point.
“We need to watch for this big guy that Jasper mentioned,” said Hemlock.
“Could that be him?” said Tored sharply, pointing.
Following his arm, Hemlock saw a tall, bulky man ambling toward the edge of the crowd. He was older than Hemlock expected, wearing a clean, white robe and a thin, oiled mustache of unusual length. His thinning gray hair was greased and combed to the side, and his eyes were recessed with dark, baggy flesh beneath them.
“He sure looks the part of a criminal. I’ve never seen him before,” said Hemlock.
Tored didn’t respond. Hemlock turned toward him, but he just stared at the man in the market.
I guess it’s the silent treatment, again.
“Okay, this must be the guy. I guess we’ll stay put unless he moves. It’s almost sundown,” Hemlock continued, trying to penetrate Tored’s sudden pensiveness.
The big man ambled about uncertainly, strolling toward a vendor’s cart for a few moments then slowly returning to his original position. Hemlock could see that the man was discreetly scanning his surroundings. She withdrew further into the shadows as the man glanced her way. Fearing Tored would be sighted, she reached to pull him back, but he was quicker than she anticipated and already found cover in the deep shadow.
“He’s anxious. It must be getting close.”
“But what are we looking for?” asked Tored.
“Anything unusual. I’m not sure, exactly.”
She saw the man slowly reach into his pocket. The glint of metal in his hand confirmed her suspicions.
“There’s the whistle,” she said.
The man began to move into the crowd. Hemlock glanced at Tored hurriedly as she stood and made to follow the man. She felt Tored rise beside her.
She dashed toward the market while doing her best to keep sight of the man. When the whistle sounded, a chorus of magical signatures burst forth all around her, but she ignored them.
She and Tored paused behind a foot cart as they watched the white robed man move through the crowd toward a distant street.
“He’s not doing anything unusual,” said Hemlock.
“No, he’s just walking,” said Tored.
“Maybe whatever I’m not supposed to be aware of isn’t happening here.”
“A good thought. We should stay with him,” said Tored, rising.
Hemlock followed Tored into the shadows, making sure she could still see the white robed man at all times.
A person shuffled across Hemlock’s path while not looking where they were going. Hemlock drew to a halt as the person turned and bumped into her. It was a cutpurse Hemlock knew on sight and by smell, as the man had a unique, acrid odor. The cutpurse’s eyes went wide with recognition as Hemlock smashed him in the side of his head with the hilt of her sabre. As the thief crumpled to the ground, Hemlock and Tored rushed on.
It won’t due to have them sound an alarm on me.
Hemlock navigated through alleys that she hoped would intersect the path the white robed man had been walking. Luckily, there were no more close encounters with cutpurse sentries, though another was spotted and avoided.
They reached a corner where the dusty track of a main road led toward the market. Hemlock expected to spot the white robed man there, but nobody was on the street. The back and forth squeaking of a wooden tavern sign was the only sound she heard.
A door that marked the home of a renowned fortune teller closed softly in front of a notorious building. The fortune teller was old—older than most—and her contemporaries were so aged that nobody seemed to remember her real name. She was known simply as “The Old Mother.” Many people in the Warrens revered her as a kind of benevolent figure, but Hemlock had a less favorable opinion. She thought the old woman was nothing more than a charlatan.
“The Old Mother’s door just closed. Maybe the white robed man went in there,” said Hemlock.
“It could be a coincidence,” said Tored.
“Maybe. But what else do we have to go on?”
“Still, it seems unlikely that Old Mother would be involved.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I just…have a feeling.”
“Well, I want to follow up. What can it hurt?”
Hemlock hoped she was imagining things, but Tored looked strangely discomfited.
“Come on,” she said and trotted across the street toward the Old Mother’s home.
The red light outside the door was not lit, which meant the Old Mother was not open for business. Hemlock knocked, nonetheless.
After a few moments without an answer, Hemlock knocked again, harder.
A few seconds later, there was a muffled reply from behind the door. “Go away!”
Hemlock knocked again and shouted, “Open the door! I need to speak with you. I’m with the City Watch!”
The heavy wooden door opened slightly, held in check by a taut brass chain. A bloodshot eye framed by a wrinkled brow glar
ed at Hemlock.
“What’s your business?” asked an aged female voice.
“Some suspicious people were just seen in this neighborhood, and I saw your door close just as they escaped. I’d like to come in for a moment, if that’s alright,” said Hemlock.
“No, it’s not alright. There’s nobody here that’s suspicious,” said the woman.
“It’s suspicious that you won’t let me in.”
Hemlock felt Tored’s hand gently rest on her arm. “Hemlock,” he began but was interrupted by a muffled thumping sound from the interior of the house.
Hemlock ignored Tored. “What was that?” she demanded.
A look of concern flashed over the old crone’s features before she composed herself. “Something musta fell in the basement. Was nothing.”
“If it was nothing, let us in for a moment!”
“No, I’m sorry. It’s early and I need to sleep.”
Hemlock placed her foot in the crack of the doorway. “I’ve tried to be civil here, but either let me in or I’m kicking this door down.”
Tored gripped her arm, but she shrugged him off.
The woman disappeared from view for a moment and then her voice sounded from behind the door. “Fine. Move your foot so I can loosen the chain.”
“Alright. Don’t do anything foolish.” Hemlock removed her foot and the door closed. There was a scratching sound as the chain was unlatched from the inside. The door slowly creaked open.
The crone known as the Old Mother glared at Hemlock over a hawkish nose. Her slate grey eyes, though slightly rheumy, communicated an energy that belied the fragile and aged frame that housed them. An abundance of ghost white hair was carefully curled, pinned and worn in a finely netted coif atop her head that simultaneously lent a regal and sterile character to her appearance. Her back curved forward near the neck, forcing her to stoop over and use a carved staff for support.
The woman bade them to enter despite her disapproving look. The room they walked into had once been an opulent parlor full of burgundy velour and dark wood, but the passing years had left it in a state not unlike the old crone’s body. Once fine wood had warped and signs of disrepair were evident, yet this somehow added to the supernatural ambience of the place.
Hemlock noticed that Tored lingered in the doorway. She looked back and motioned for him to enter. He seemed to hesitate.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, stepping slowly into the space.
“Well, well,” crooned the old woman, looking over Tored oddly.
Tored bore his typical air of indifference, but Hemlock sensed some unexplained tension in him.
“They call you the Old Mother, right?” said Hemlock. There was something unusual about the woman. Hemlock’s magical affinity registered negative energy coming from her, but it was insubstantial and difficult to categorize. It almost felt like potential, rather than realized, energy.
“True enough,” croaked the woman.
Another muffled thump sounded from below them.
“Take us down there!” said Hemlock, looking around for a door to the basement. She spotted a likely one in the far corner of the room, partially concealed by shadow. There was a coating of dust in the vicinity of the door that looked freshly disturbed.
The Old Mother stepped in front of Hemlock. “You can’t go down there,” she cried defiantly.
Hemlock pushed her aside and marched toward the door. “Watch her, Tored,” she cried as she proceeded past the woman.
Reaching the door, her eyes adjusted to the low light as she lifted an iron handle to unlatch the locking mechanism.
“Get away from there!” yelled the Old Mother, but Hemlock ignored her.
The door opened inward, and a dark, winding stone stairway stood beyond it, low-lit but doused in flickering orange from some lower source.
A loud, guttural grunt echoed from unseen depths was followed by another thump. The latter sounded like the shifting of a bulky object without the door muffling it.
Hemlock quickly scanned the stairs for any sign of threat then descended cautiously.
She turned and hissed, “Bring her.” Hemlock returned her attention to the stairs with the stench of humid rot greeting her nostrils.
She descended down four score steps then an unexpectedly large chamber yawned before her. It was cylindrical and high-ceilinged, with multi-story wine racks that had been gutted, planked and changed into crude bookshelves. Row upon row of moldy tomes ringed the outside of the room. In the center of the chamber was a glowing pit above which hovered a luminous, deep red cloud that seemed to undulate with tongues of unnatural flame. A trio of bronze braziers added additional light and were the source of the flickering Hemlock had seen on the stairs. Midway between the shelves and the pit, the large man from the market was shackling a slighter figure to the floor with heavy, short chains. Displaced pieces of previously well-laid slate flooring suggested the shackles had been recently and crudely installed. The slight figure didn’t resist the imprisonment.
Something about the prone figure was familiar to Hemlock, and then her foot struck a loose object on the stair. A dull copper cup sat at her feet.
“Jasper,” she mouthed without a sound.
“Boris!” shouted the Old Mother hoarsely as Tored escorted her down the stairs behind Hemlock.
The large man looked up as Hemlock bolted down the remaining stairs. She stood before him with a sabre at his chest before he had fully risen.
Suddenly, her head was swimming with the recognition of incredibly potent magical emanations coming from the vicinity of the pit. The deep red cloud was filled with a demonic magical presence. As she regarded it, the undulating cloud took on a humanoid form, and a hovering figure rose to the height of twelve feet. Bright red skin coalesced over rippling sinew and swollen, pulsing veins that nearly burst from the pressure of the venomous blood they conveyed. Yellow, fiery eyes, deep set in a head with a heavy brow and cruel, up-curved horns, glistened as they flickered to wakefulness.
“Now you’ve awakened him!” cried the Old Mother.
Hemlock, with both sabres in hand, stepped back from the large man called Boris.
“Unshackle Jasper!” she cried.
But Boris was circling away from Hemlock, hurriedly distancing himself from the demon in the center of the room.
Hemlock could detect a veritable spider web of magical restraint surrounding the demon, and this relaxed her by a few degrees. But she saw that the spells were crudely crafted and not nearly strong enough for the size and power of the demon they restrained. She had seen Safreon’s use of similar binding spells, and these paled in comparison.
“That thing is barely contained. Tored, it’s big enough to take out half the City if it gets loose. We have to take care of this,” said Hemlock.
“What do you mean by take care of it? This demon is powering half the magic spells in the Warrens!” cried the Old Mother.
“Are you insane? What are you talking about?”
“You know me. People come to me for advice and for help. Since the magic potions went away, people have suffered. I’ve eased their suffering with my magic—made possible by this demon’s imprisonment.”
Hemlock noticed Boris was creeping toward Tored and the Old Mother.
“Stop there, Boris!” she yelled.
The demon floated motionlessly, and seemed to be listening to the recent conversation with an attentiveness that further alarmed Hemlock. It was clearly intelligent. Safreon had always looked for the dumb ones. He’d said the intelligent ones were far too dangerous.
Hemlock examined the dark energy she’d detected around the Old Mother before they’d descended into the basement. She now understood what it was. It was like a series of dark chains between her and the demon, as if she had somehow tethered herself to it magically.
“What have you done here, you crazy old crone?”
The Old Mother drew up proudly, and her eyes burned
with indignation. “I’ve stepped in and helped where your beloved wizards abandoned! I’ve kept the fabric of this community intact! And I’ve had no help from the likes of you!”
“Let me get this straight. You summoned this thing to help people? Do you understand what will happen if this thing gets loose?”
“There is an agreement between it and me. It doesn’t resist the binding spells I use to generate magic and power my own potions. In return, I don’t banish it back to its home plane. Apparently, it’s not very pleasant there, so it’s happy to stay right here.”
Hemlock further examined the magical energies between the demon and the Old Mother. She was skeptical that the demon could be banished by the spells the Old Mother had in place. And the soul binding spells between the two were so strong that Hemlock felt sure the demon could possess her at will.
“But it’s growing stronger, isn’t it? What is the end game here? How will you control it once it gets too powerful—if it hasn’t already?” said Hemlock.
The Old Mother looked at the unconscious form of the young thief lying shackled to the floor. “I now offer it sacrifices to appease it—riff raff that will never be missed. If anything, it’s helping make the neighborhood safer!”
“That’s why you were trying to avoid detection! So you’re judge, jury and executioner, now? Don’t you understand how crazy this is? You are totally out of control, here!”
The old woman didn’t answer.
Hemlock looked at the demon again, and it regarded her in return. “Be careful what you do,” it said in a deep voice that suggested the bubbling sound of roiling, molten lava.
“Go back to your plane. Whatever agreement you’ve made with this woman is at an end,” growled Hemlock.
“Hemlock, let’s get Gwineval. This foe may be beyond us,” said Tored.
“No time,” hissed Hemlock.
“I won’t go back,” growled the demon.
“Were you planning to possess her?” asked Hemlock.
“No. Just making sure she didn’t send me back.”
“I can see your magic. You could take her if you wanted to.”
Hemlock And The Dread Sorceress (Book 3) Page 5
