Hemlock and the Dread Sorceress

  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 glared 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.”

  “Nonsense!” shouted the Old Mother.

  “Be quiet! I’m negotiating for your life,” chided Hemlock.

  “You see magic? Tell me how this looks!” taunted the demon. It extended its arms and a burst of magic flame erupted around it. The flames were contained by the web of spells that surroun
ded the demon, but more than a few layers of magic were consumed in the process.

  “Another burst like that, and I’ll take you down!” said Hemlock.

  “I’ll kill the old woman,” said the demon.

  “Wait! No!” cried the Old Mother. Boris bolted for the door, but Tored was quicker than the large man anticipated and more powerful than he expected. Tored landed a well-placed blow with a closed fist, and the large man buckled to the floor, gasping.

  “Let him go, Tored,” said Hemlock.

  “Yes, Tored. Let him go,” said the Old Mother. “Let me go as well. Don’t think I’ve forgotten your face. You sought out my help once, and now I demand a chance to live!”

  Hemlock looked back and forth between Tored, the Old Mother and the demon.

  The demon chuckled softly.

  “We don’t have time for this. Old Mother, use your soul bond to draw strength from the demon. We have to slay it!” said Hemlock.

  “No!” cried the Old Mother, but Hemlock was already leaping toward the demon. She vaulted upwards and kicked with both of her legs as her sabres bit into and tore the deep red flesh near its neck. Her kick propelled her backwards as the demon unleashed another volley of fire. This time, the fire burst through the spells woven by the Old Mother and traveled along the soul binding link between her and the demon. The crone cried out for a moment before her body crumpled and burst into flame.

  “Damn!” muttered Hemlock.

  The demon was loose and charging at Hemlock. Tored interrupted its advance with a spear thrust that tore into its muscular shoulder, splattering the warrior with dark, scalding blood. Tored screamed as his clothes burned off, failing to protect the vulnerable flesh beneath. But the aged warrior held his ground as the demon turned to face him.

  Hemlock circled behind the beast and hamstrung it with two heavy blows to its leg. The demon howled in pain and stumbled toward Tored. Tored wounded its side with another strike from his spear, but had to give way in the face of the sheer bulk of the creature.

  The demon reached the wall and lifted one of the makeshift bookcases, sending books tumbling to the floor. With a roar that shook the chamber, it threw the twenty foot span of heavy timber at Tored. Tored turned aside in a running jump but the rack was too large for him to avoid. Part of the wooden rack struck him in the back and head as it hit the floor and shattered, covering the warrior.

  Hemlock was horrified by the fate of her friend as the demon moved to the next rack and threw it at her. She darted to the side in time to avoid the heavy wood and flying books. Leaping over the remnants of the last ruined rack, she hoped against hope to see movement that would indicate Tored still lived.

  The demon rotated to the next rack and hurled it violently. Hemlock was able to leap over the pit and get to the rear wall as the demon continued to hurl bookshelves at her. The floor became treacherously littered with broken timber.

  She ran to the shelter of a still-standing shelf as the demon hurled another one toward her previous location. She charged the demon, but a leap onto a broken timber went awry when the impact of another rack moved her intended landing point. She was forced to tumble awkwardly to the ground, hitting her head on another plank that fell unexpectedly in her path. Bloodied and feeling slightly woozy, she crouched as the crashing of wood betrayed the charge of the demon.

  She heard a man groan from under the pile of debris as the demon approached her.

  Tored lives!

  The demon was on her in the next instant, filling the air with fragments of exploding wood as it flailed with a terrible rage.

  Tored’s peril triggered a part of her that she now feared. A savage feeling of bloodlust consumed her and she no longer had any doubt or hesitation. All her thoughts were directed toward inflicting pain on her enemy.

  The demon continued to charge her in a rage, but time slowed down for Hemlock as a supernatural strength infused her. There was the beast towering over her, mere steps from rending her limb from limb, but she was eerily calm. She effortlessly lifted an eight foot board that was six inches square and had been broken at the end, leaving a cruelly sharpened extremity. In less than a second, she had placed the board to accept the charge of the unwitting demon.

  The beast’s momentum was so great that it impaled itself through the abdomen and fell heavily to the floor in an explosion of bloody gore. Hemlock calmly leapt to the side, but the burning red ochre covered her. The viscous fluid got in her eyes and clouded her vision. In that darkness, a familiar vision seemed to surface. It was a great, black, leathery wing stretching into flight. Hemlock used her cloak to wipe the burning liquid from her eyes and then the rest of her. Mercifully, the vision faded quickly and her normal sight returned. She had managed to clear the vile blood from her eyes before it did serious damage.

  “All debts come due eventually,” said a voice in her head. She thought it was Safreon’s voice. She struck her head in an attempt to reset her bearings as she took stock of the situation. The demon was still struggling, though it appeared to be mortally wounded, and its midsection was slowly melting into crimson goo.

  Suddenly, she felt a force impact her, but it wasn’t a physical force. She had a sudden, sharp headache. Her head pounded, and the demon’s voice whispered to her from inside her mind.

  Yes, you’ll do fine.

  She began to swoon, and a strange tingling sensation started in her fingertips.

  “Oh no you don’t!” she cried, regaining her footing.

  With an act of sheer will, she thought of her mental communications with the griffin and compared it to what she now felt. She was able to perceive the magical channel through which the demon was reaching out to her, and she directed her will along that channel, lashing out with something like a mental shout.

  She felt the force leave her mind as the demon howled with rage and tried, unsuccessfully, to rise.

  “Tored!” she shouted over the crackle of flames from wood that burned all around her.

  “Here!” he shouted, sounding stronger than she’d expected.

  She was by his side in an instant.

  “The boards—too heavy!” He coughed as smoke started to fill the room. Her burst of strength had not wholly passed and she tossed the pile of thick planks aside with some effort.

  “Can you walk?” she asked.

  “My leg is broken, but I think I can manage.” He cried out in agony as he tried to rise.

  She helped him up as the room became an inferno. Miraculously, the path to the stairs was clear.

  “Hemlock!” cried a familiar, youthful voice from behind.

  She turned, still supporting Tored. There, under several planks and still chained to the floor was Jasper, the thief. “Help me!” he cried.

  But Hemlock sensed that a change had come over Jasper. His aura was decidedly different, more powerful and more sinister.

  “Can we save him?” shouted Tored over the din of the fire.

  “No. And it’s just as well,” said Hemlock.

  “Hemlock!” cried Jasper. “Something’s happened to me. There’s a voice in my head. It says to tell you that I’m still me even though it’s in me now. Hemlock, I don’t want to burn alive. Please! I want to see my mum again. Hemlock!”

  Hemlock set Tored against the standing remnants of a bookshelf.

  “I’m sorry, Jasper,” she shouted. Kneeling, she picked up Tored’s spear and cast it at the adolescent. Her aim was true and it struck him between the chest and the shoulder blade, killing him instantly.

  There was a great howl, then. As Hemlock helped Tored up the stairs, she saw a deep red cloud of energy leave Jasper’s body. Drawn into the pit, the red light—somehow visible despite the fire—drew in upon itself and receded with a pop.

  “He died like a warrior—struck from above and over the shoulder. It was an honorable blow,” grunted Tored as they climbed away from the conflagration below.

  “He wa
s just a stupid kid,” said Hemlock.

  “Fate is often unkind, but you eased his passing.”

  “Thanks.”

  They were met on the street by a fire brigade and a detachment of the watch. Hemlock explained what happened as Tored was placed on a litter, against his will, and returned to their apartment where Mercuria’s healing powers awaited.

  There was no sign of Boris at the scene. Hemlock did not subsequently seek him out, suspecting that he was, more likely than not, an unwitting pawn in the misguided schemes of the Old Mother.

  All debts come due eventually.

  The phrase echoed in her mind as she considered the motives of the Old Mother and the recurring dark vision of a dragon that she continued to experience.

  A deputy wanted her to report the incident to the Senate but Hemlock refused. Her recent authority, and the force of her spirit, prevented the deputy from daring an attempt to detain her. But she did give a full accounting of the tale, twice, and with many witnesses present.

  Gwineval will blame me for this, no doubt. The sooner we leave the City, the better.

  When she arrived at their apartment, Mercuria had already treated Tored, and he was resting quietly. She entered his room and pulled up a chair before he could offer any resistance.

  “Hemlock, he should rest,” cautioned Mercuria, looking weary from the process of healing.

  “So should you. Leave us,” said Hemlock.

  Mercuria looked puzzled, but complied.

  “So…” said Hemlock.

  “Yes?” said Tored.

  “The Old Mother knew you. How?”

  Tored shifted in bed as if to create distance, but then turned back to face her. “It is probably best that you know the truth, though it is a point of great shame for me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Remember when I visited the City before we left on our quest to disconnect the Witch Crags from the City?”

  “Yes.”

  “The problems between Taros Sundar and Umra Vyle were already boiling over during our journey to the City. I could tell that Umra Vyle had something planned, and he intended to move on Taros Sundar. It was only a matter of time. As you saw, I couldn’t get through to the boy. He remained oblivious to the threat.

  “When we reached the City, I despaired and confided in a friend who lived here. He knew of the Old Mother and her magical abilities. I met with her in secret and asked her for a spell that would rid me of Umra Vyle. She gave me a potion that would summon a beast to kill the man who drank it. I emptied that potion into Umra Vyle’s waterskin.”

  “The rainbow cat!” said Hemlock.

  “Yes. My hands are stained with the blood of my comrades in arms because I couldn’t accept that my adopted house would be dishonored by Umra Vyle. My vanity and pride has brought more shame upon me and that house than Umra Vyle ever could have.”

  “Now I understand why you got so distant. I wish you would have come to me first.”

  “We didn’t know each other as well, then. And I was so set upon my course that it may not have mattered if we did. I’ve been a fool, Hemlock.”

  Hemlock grasped his hand. “We’re all foolish, sometimes. We both have wielded power and made bad decisions. We have this in common, you and I. You have to pull yourself together. If you give up, it means I should too. I’ve got a lot of blood on my hands.”

  “But you’re young, Hemlock. Youthful indiscretions are more easily forgiven by those that sit in judgment and also by the harshest judge of all—ourselves. But I am an old man, fully formed and with a lifetime of experience. Yet, I still made this terrible error in judgment. I have to be honest with you, I no longer trust myself. I will understand if you choose to part ways with me.”

  “Are you kidding? Do you see me overflowing with friends? I’ve got my sister, Merit and you. That’s about it. If you can’t forgive yourself for your own sake, please do it for my sake. I need you at your full powers and fully focused. We still have to face DuLoc, after all.”

  “My spear will always be at your command. But council—maybe you should seek that elsewhere.”

  “Nonsense. I trust you above all others. And I’m not leaving your bedside until you forgive yourself.”

  “That will be a long wait. I can’t promise that, Hemlock. I won’t lie to you. I may never forgive myself.”

  “Well, you’re going to be a barrel of laughs on this trip, aren’t you? Seriously, just work through it. Talk to me. Talk to Mercuria, even. You seem to get along with her.”

  “I won’t burden her with this.”

  “She’d want to know, Tored.”

  “Please don’t tell her. If I decide to do so, I’d like it to be my decision.”

  “Fair enough. Now, rest up and try to put this out of your mind. We have another quest to begin come morning.”

  “I will try.”

  “One last thing. Does this have anything to do with the ghost of Umra Vyle?”

  “I think so, yes. His malice, combined with my guilt, probably allowed his spirit to bind with me.”

  “So you’ll continue to be haunted by him?”

  “Unless I am able to forgive myself—which is very unlikely. This is another reason why I think you should reconsider traveling with me.”

  “No way. We’ll deal with this ghost. Together.”