Hemlock and the Wizard Tower

by B Throwsnaill

  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.

  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 n
egative 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 in 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.

  Gwineval thought of the idealistic rogue known as Safreon. Somehow, this Safreon had appealed to Gwineval’s good nature and his doubts about the outcome of the Guild’s power grab. Gwineval revealed certain information about the Guild to Safreon–information that would result in his death should his fellow wizards discover that it had been revealed to an outsider. He respected Safreon and he wanted to encourage the little bits of good that the man obviously performed in his neighborhood. He looked at Safreon like a little pet in a glass house with no awareness of the forces at work on the other side of the glass. What harm could there be in indulging his altruistic side? Deep in his heart, Gwineval knew that the Wizard Guild would rule the realm with an iron fist fortified by their control of magic–despite the fact that Gwineval believed that it was morally wrong to do so. It would sadden him greatly on the day he would have to reveal to Safreon that there was nothing he could do to stem the momentum–that the forces were already in motion and quite unstoppable.

  Suddenly he felt an itching in his head.  He scratched at the back of his skull, his scales still feeling somewhat unfamiliar as he itched. His scales didn't itch often like human skin had.  The itching then became a dull burning and the sensation quickly manifested into a voice crying out his name inside his mind.

  "GWINEVAL!"

  He staggered and his subordinates moved toward him to steady him, yet they remained frightened of him and hesitated to actually make contact.

  As quickly as the phenomenon had started, it was over.  He was left to revel in amazement at the power that must have been necessary to accomplish such a feat; to get an audible message to him through the wards of the Tower would have been a trying task even for one of his level of wizardry.

  He believed that he had recognized the voice; if he was not mistaken it had been that of none other than the charming crusader that he had just been thinking of, Safreon of the Warrens.  The message could only mean one thing; that Safreon was trying to initiate magical communications with him.

  The timing was poor, given his current need to apprehend the mysterious intruder.  He considered whether or not to notify the other wizards of the intruder's presence.  This idea was quickly dismissed in his mind; he knew how the Guild would react if they caught an intruder.  There was a faction within the wizards known as the Crimson Order.  In his mind, the Crimson Order embodied all of the negative attributes of the Guild that gave him reason to think that the tremendous power that the Guild was about to obtain was morally wrong.

  In Gwineval’s opinion, the Crimson Order took every eccentricity and flaw of the wizards and magnified them to an extreme.  They were violently xenophobic, ravenously ambitious, viewed non-wizards as little more than farm animals, and considered rogue wizards to be dangerous extremists who should be dealt with quickly and with deadly force.

  Gwineval led a fragile alliance of non-Crimson Order wizards within the Guild, and they had been able to contain the influence of the Crimson Order in recent years.

  But an incident like an intruder in the Wizard Tower would be a flashpoint issue that could quickly give the Crimson Order an opportunity to exploit paranoia and fear among the other wizards in order to gain full political control of the Guild.

  He had to try to contain this situation and deal with this intruder himself, before the Crimson Order discovered them.

  But he was equally intrigued by the evidence that this seemingly harmless Safreon was a rogue Wizard of great power, able to contact him even within this magically shielded stronghold.

  Emerging from his line of thinking, Gwineval cast a reassuring glance to his subordinates and gestured for them to remain behind; he continued to walk down the hall toward his chambers.

  He decided that he would quickly initiate communications with Safreon, for he suspected that the two very unusual events that had just transpired could be related. 

  His chambers were on the way toward the third floor stair, where he had intended to try to pick up the trail of the intruder.  A few moments of conversation with Safreon would not, in his estimation, compromise his search for the intruder and could provide him with critical information about the situation, if Safreon knew something about the intruder. Plus, it would satiate his intense curiosity about how Safreon had contacted him so invasively.

  As he reached the door to his chamber, he slipped in quickly and moved through the artificially humid room to a corner where a thick ivory pedestal sat supporting a large half clamshell on top of it. The clamshell held a pool of dark water.

  Gwineval’s eyes flicked closed and his head lolled forward as he reached the small pool.

  A strange mist emanated from the water in an instant, and as that mist cleared Safreon’s distorted features were visible through ripples in the water’s surface.

  "Gwineval – thank all greatness! You received my message," said Safreon abruptly.

  "Yessss, we must speak about that–and quickly–for I have business to attend to here," replied Gwineval urgently.

  "I trust that our communications are private?" asked Safreon.

  "Yes, the Tower has innate protections and I have taken extra precautions, given my position here," replied Gwineval.

  "I believe that my associate–a girl of promising yet undeveloped talents–is planning to enter the Wizard Tower tonight."

  Gwineval did not reply immediately and Safreon waited, content that his message had been received without being misunderstood as a jest.

  Gwineval considered what Safreon might truly be, and whether this could be an indirect move against him by the Crimson Order. If Safreon was part of a plot to undermine him, it was being perfec
tly executed.

  Gwineval looked hard at Safreon’s distorted features in the pool.

  "Yes, you have a decision to make my friend," spoke Safreon after a time. "I can appreciate what must be going through your mind. Can I explain the background of the situation?"

  "You must be brief – I detected your associate not minutes ago and she may soon be detected by others!" replied Gwineval.

  "She’s young and headstrong, but she’s with us; she fights for justice and fairness. Her sister is sickly– normally aided by magical alms–but the faltering magic in the Warrens is weakening her. The girl is named Hemlock. Can you try to save her for me?"

  Gwineval weighed the merits of the story. It seemed internally consistent and he judged that Safreon might be telling the truth.

  But what of Safreon himself? What is the source of his power? Is it the Crimson Order? Gwineval wondered to himself.

  "You must tell me this and you must be precise and candid or else I will not help you. Where did you obtain the magical power to contact me tonight?" demanded Gwineval.

  Safreon paused for just a moment before he replied.

  "I have a Wand of the Imperator," said Safreon with resignation.

  A great hiss left Gwineval’s mouth then and his forked tongue flicked back and forth among his teeth.

  "Truly?" responded Gwineval in disbelief, unable to believe that Safreon could actually possess such a legendary and powerful magical artifact.

  "Yes," responded Safreon evenly.

  "Then I will help this Hemlock. But in exchange, you will allow me to fully investigate the powers of the Wand," Gwineval replied, his pulse quickening at the anticipation of having access to the artifact.