Hemlock And The Dread Sorceress (Book 3) (9 page)

Her thoughts returned to the inaudible beat of the griffin’s wings and the heartbeats of her companions, which she felt more than heard.  It was nearly silent.  The only things she could hear were her own heart beating and the dull roar of the blood coursing through her veins.

“Is everyone alright?” she asked, her voice oddly muffled. She feared no one had heard her.

But she felt Tored grunt affirmatively in front of her, and Mercuria said yes behind her.

Time was difficult to quantify as they flew on in silence.  They approached a line of fire, and Hemlock enjoyed the increasing sensation of warmth and comfort that the roiling flames provided.  The griffin gained speed and they streaked along the fire. The small world in the distance, an orange ball ringed with white clouds, grew large before them.  The griffin skirted the world and they felt a pull that forced them to hold on tightly. They hurtled away along another fiery tendril toward another distant world.

Hemlock knew the small world in the distance was their destination.  As they approached it, Tored managed to speak loudly enough for them to hear.

“It took the monks of my people decades to achieve fleeting visions of this place.  And here I sit, seeing it with my own eyes,” he said.

As they approached their destination, known as "Urrund” when Hemlock and Mercuria lived there, they witnessed a mass of will-o-the-wisp-like balls of light near the stream of Maker’s Fire that illuminated the green world.  The wisps seemed to surge out of the cloud layer and dart into the void along the stream of fire, back toward the City.  But as the wisps left the vicinity of the world, their momentum faltered and most were drawn back toward the planet at great velocity, soon to be replaced by new
arrivals.  A few managed to break free of the pull and soon became indistinguishable from the light of the flame itself.

“Does the fire consume them?” Mercuria asked.

“I think not,” said Tored.  “Our people believe it is possible to achieve a superior birth if one can overcome feelings of attachment to our former life.  I can scarcely believe what I am saying, but I think we are witnessing that very process.”

Nobody spoke another word.  They gradually slipped through the border of the void into a verdant world with a white, cloudy sky.  Hemlock visualized their destination, and the griffin altered her course.  They flew over great forests, raging rivers and rolling hills, slowing as they proceeded.

Suddenly, the terrain looked familiar to Hemlock as she spotted a small village nestled beside a river.  Beyond it, a great town loomed in the distance.  The town was called Ogrun, where a king ruled over the nearby land.  She had known it as a child.  A single, great peak rose behind Ogrun.  Hemlock had an unusual feeling as she looked it over.  It always scared her when she had been able to see it above the trees.  Soon, Penelope was descending rapidly. They reached the tree line and landed hard in a woodland clearing.  A small brook flowed through the clearing, and a lazy light played amidst the branches and dusty pollen that surrounded them.

Hemlock felt a sense of recognition as she stepped off the griffin’s back with a groan and looked at her surroundings attentively.  She immediately knew the clearing.   It was only a few hundred yards away from her old home, which was secluded in the forests outside the nearby town.

“Hemlock, we’re really here!” exclaimed Mercuria, also dismounting.

Hemlock turned toward her sister, intending to express her own excitement, but the sight of Penelope stopped her from speaking.  The griffin’s legs trembled as she walked toward a particularly thick section of underbrush.  Penelope even seemed to struggle to keep her head high enough to allow her to see where she was going.

“Penelope, are you alright?” Hemlock asked.

I am very tired.  I must sleep now.  It feels like it will be safe here.  Do not wake me for at least three days.

Hemlock looked at her companions nervously.  None of them knew what to do other than honor the griffin’s request.

“Okay.  You will be safe here.  I’ll make sure my mother watches over you,” said Hemlock uncertainly.  She hoped her mother would be around to fulfill that promise.

The three of them watched as Penelope nestled into the cover of the nearby underbrush, doing a good job of concealing herself.

“I hope she’ll be okay,” said Hemlock.

“The passage was difficult for her,” said Tored, “but I think she knows her limitations.  I suspect she will be fine.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Hemlock.

“Should we look for Mother?” said Mercuria.

Hemlock looked in the direction of their old home.  The path that led to it looked freshly cleared.

“Yes,” said Hemlock as she started down the path.  A final look back toward Penelope reassured her that the griffin’s hiding place was effective.

The smell of pine trees comforted her as she walked.  It was a chilly fall afternoon, but they had worn heavier clothes in anticipation of the colder temperatures.

“What will Mother say when she sees us?  Will she be angry?” asked Mercuria.

Hemlock had been wondering the same thing.  “Probably angry and happy at the same time.”

“Will you make her understand why we left?  Horace was never a good father.  She has to understand that,” said Mercuria.

“I think I will remain in the clearing while you meet with your mother,” announced Tored abruptly.

“Tored, no.  You can come with us,” said Mercuria.

“No, it will be best if I remain here.  I am used to being in the wilderness, and this time with your mother will be personal.  It is best that I stay back.”

“I understand,” replied Hemlock.  “We’ll come get you in an hour or so.  The house isn’t far if you run into any trouble.  But this was a quiet wood.  We should all be fine.”

Mercuria placed her hand in Hemlock’s as they walked toward the house.

After a few minutes, the path widened, and they could see an old cottage nestled in another small clearing.  It was covered in ivy and brambles, but this made the home look like an extension of the forest rather than a decaying ruin.  A small stream ran along one side of the structure, and a large paddle wheel turned lazily in the current, creaking softly.  The wheel itself was a patchwork of various pieces of wood and large branches.

Hemlock was so transfixed by the vision of her childhood home that she ignored the dull sensation of magic on the path until it was nearly too late.  Suddenly, there was a cracking sound and a whoosh of wind kicked up from nowhere, pulling leaves up into a swirling cone like a small tornado.  The funnel rapidly approached, blocking the pathway. Hemlock and Mercuria turned and ran.

“One of mother’s wards!” cried Mercuria, echoing what Hemlock already knew.

“Split up in the woods!” shouted Hemlock, knowing that the funnel would weaken amongst the brush.  She darted to her right, leaping over a fallen branch and avoiding a nest of brambles.

Hemlock heard Mercuria thrashing through the woods on the other side of the path, but the din of the funnel drowned out the sounds of her sister.  Hemlock was relieved that it had followed her instead of Mercuria.

She expected the spell to dissipate as she left the vicinity of the house, but it continued to shadow her movements and didn’t appear to be weakening as she’d hoped.  She decided to double back to the path in hopes of finding Mercuria and seeking her mother’s aid to undo the spell.

As she reached the path, the funnel seemed to regain intensity and speed.  Hemlock ran as quickly as she could without seeking out the dark energy in her mind, and was barely able to outrun the spell.

“Mercuria, run for the house!” she shouted ahead of her, hoping that her sister wouldn’t encounter additional wards.

When she came within sight of the house, she was relieved to see her sister safely in the doorway, knocking furiously.  Her magical attunement didn’t sense any more wards on the path, though there were wards all around the perimeter near the path—more than she ever remembered her mother using when she still lived at home.

She saw a figure at the window as she neared Mercuria, and the whooshing sound behind her subsided.

The door opened with a slow creak as she reached her sister’s side.

The woman who greeted the girls looked overjoyed, bewildered and confused.  Their mother was a little older than Hemlock remembered, and her normally disheveled appearance had worsened.  She wore heavy earth-toned pants and a dull green cloak under a woven wool jacket.  Dried leaves, twigs and thorns were nestled all through her garments and even in her unkempt hair. 

“Girls?  Is this some trick?” said the woman with tears starting to stream down her cheeks.

“No, Mother.  We’re real.  We’ve come back to see how you are getting along,” said Mercuria.

“My baby!” cried her mother and embraced the younger girl.

Hemlock’s heart swelled at the sight, but thoughts of her stepfather injected ambiguity into her pure feeling of joy.

When her mother’s attention turned to her, Hemlock took a step forward to meet her embrace.

“You’ve both grown so much!” said her mother between sobs.

There were several more embraces before their mother regained her composure.

“Girls, what happened to you?  I’ve been worried sick for over a year!  But look at you both!  Has time left me behind, here?”

“We had to go away, Mother, and then things got complicated.  It took a while to find an opportunity for us to return,” said Hemlock.

“Where have you been?”

“In a distant city on a different world—that magic city where the toy makers come from.”

“So, it’s real, is it?  I suspected as much given the unusual merchants that come along that river.  Is that how you left? On one of their boats?”

“Yes,” said Hemlock.

“I started to think that had to be it.  I even thought about trying to find you by seeking passage with them, but something held me back.  And things got complicated here, as well.”

Hemlock’s thoughts darkened as she prepared to ask a question that she feared the answer to. “Where is Stepfather?”

Her mother’s eyes grew shadowed then she responded, “Gone.  Left soon after you did.  I guess my grief was too much for him.”

“That’s a good thing, I think,” said Hemlock.  “He was a bad man, Mother.”

Hemlock was surprised to see anger flare in her mother’s eyes. “A bad man?  Do you think it’s easy for someone like me to find love?  Dropped here as I was with no background in this world.  Pregnant and alone.  With magic powers that others find strange and with no father for my child.  Maybe he wasn’t perfect, but he made me happy.  He was all I had after you left.  Now I have nothing but the woods and the sky.”

“He started acting strange toward the end—making eyes at me and saying suggestive things.  That’s why I left.  I tried to tell you at the time, but you didn’t understand.  I was going to go alone, but I feared that he’d do the same thing to Mercuria.  When she showed up on the boat unexpectedly, I decided to take her too,” said Hemlock.

“You made a lot of decisions that day, didn’t you?” said her mother.

“And she hasn’t stopped since, believe me,” said Mercuria in a half-joking tone.  “Let’s let bygones be bygones—if only for a little while.  I’m so happy to see you again, Mother!  But you look a mess!  Have you been that distraught?  Let me clean you up.”

Mother could not resist as Mercuria washed and dressed her.  Hemlock wandered around the old home.  Paintings she had done as a child still sat on the fireplace mantle as they always had, and portraits her mother must have painted after they left were now displayed beside them.

“I painted those so I wouldn’t forget your faces,” said her mother, unexpectedly at her side.  Not many people could approach Hemlock without her being aware of it, but she wasn’t surprised because her mother had always moved with an unusual silence.

“You said things got complicated here, too.  What did you mean by that?” asked Hemlock, noting her sister’s singing as she cleaned up in another room.

“Well, your stepfather leaving was one thing I referred to.  Another is the Sorceress.”

“Who is the Sorceress?”

Her mother walked to a nearby chair and sat, beckoning Hemlock to join her on a couch.

“There is much I didn’t share with you when you were younger.  I didn’t want things to be as hard for you as they were for me.  I figured the less you knew the better—and I didn’t care one whit for the burden your father placed on me.  I just wanted you to have a normal life.  But there is no reason not to tell it all, now.”

Mercuria rejoined them as their mother spoke. “When I was still a girl, I lived on another world.  It was different than this place—wilder, more dangerous, and more magical.  But I was happy there.  I knew how to survive, and I was strong, respected.  Then, your father showed up—
your father
, Hemlock.  Mercuria, your father was different—a man from this world who died during a raid.  But that’s another tale. 
Your
father, Hemlock, came to me one evening and wove a tale that entranced a young girl.  He spoke of creating worlds, of destinies and treachery.  He said he knew he would be betrayed, and he needed to seed the worlds with an heir—an heir that would be revealed at the proper time.”