Hemlock And The Wizard Tower (Book 1) (2 page)

She rose and sprinted several yards until she reached the base of the Tower. As she removed the remnants of the wings, she looked all around for signs of detection.

The night was still quiet, and only the faint howling of a distant wolf interrupted it.

Her adrenaline was pumping as she considered her next course of action. She knew the gatehouse was to her right as she stood with her back on the cold granite of the Wizard Tower. Everyone knew the gatehouse was protected by the Drawbridge of Ninety-Nine Tears. As she scampered around the Tower toward the gatehouse, she remembered the legend.

T
he Drawbridge was named for an apocryphal event that had taken place in the early, formative years of the current age of the City. According to the tale, t
here had been a faction in the E
lite citizenry that had been wary of the influence the Wizard Guild had been gaining over City politics. A legislative power play had been made in the Senate, which would have regulated the use of Magic and outlawed the
Wizard Guild
—
or any organized group of Magic Users, for that matter, who would not have agreed to be "supervised" by City government authorities. The Wizard’s Guild had reacted quickly and decisively. 

The Senate members, who intended to unanimously pass the measure to institute the new regulations, had numbered ninety-nine. Each had been abducted on the night prior to the passing of the legislation; some had been abducted by means of sorcery and others had been taken by more conventional means. For six days and nights, nothing had been seen or heard from the ninety-nine abductees, and no means had been found to enter or communicate with the occupants of the Wizard Tower. 

Finally, on the seventh day, the Drawbridge had been lowered, and the ninety-nine Senators had been impaled on long gleaming spears which had been arrayed in two rows running up and down the length of the long wooden platform. All ninety-nine had been near death, and
appeared
to be dying of thirst;
their bodies were
horribly desiccated. Though the Drawbridge had been down, no desperate relatives, city guards, or any force had been able to cross onto the Drawbridge to intervene on behalf of the ninety-nine. Then, from within the Tower, a great chant
was
heard, as if each wizard had chanted in unison under the power of some mysterious amplification.

"Know this: each of these ninety-nine has been complicit in crimes against our Guild. We will not abide those with hostile intent towards us. Each of these shall die upon the Drawbridge unless they can shed a single tear to atone for their crimes. Ninety-nine tears shall be the sum total of our required penance for these crimes. The alternative is death."

Each of the ninety-nine Senators had perished soon after these words were spoken, for none had been able to muster the single tear required
,
though those who had some small remaining pool of energy had cried out, tearlessly and pathetically, at their fate.

Hemlock couldn’t help but shudder a bit as she beheld the drawbridge and thought about its legend. It
was closed, but there was a slight gap at
the
top, where its edge met a stone gatehouse. The gatehouse extended outward from the Tower proper at a height of almost twenty-five yards. The shafts of the spears, which were mounted on the drawbridge, were visible through this gap, and gave it an appearance not unlike a crude mouth
,
facing upwards towards the sky, punctuated by thin wooden teeth. 

She had a rope and a small grappling hook with her, which she pulled out of her backpack. She secure
d
her hook through the gap and onto the very spears which were described in the story of the
d
rawbridge. It was those same spears she used as handholds to slip through the gap and into the interior side. She then climbe
d back down the inside using those same
shafts.

That was almost too easy!

S
he had progressed farth
er into the Tower than anyone
she had ever heard
tell
of.
P
erhaps even this much progress, should she fail, would earn her a place in song and folklore: at least in the Warrens.
S
he
shook
her head and quickly dismissed
any
thoughts of failure.

Then s
he thought sadly of Safreon, and how his countenance
lately
seemed to be aging before her eyes. She
’
d watched him living his life in the constant sorrow of martyrdom; he didn't seem to derive much joy from his existence, despite the appreciation of many people  he had helped and mentored. In her estimation, he, above most others, deserved happiness in return for his sacrifices.

A p
ortcullis stood
before her
as tall as two of the tallest men in the City combined, and the iron was black, cunningly curved and slick with moisture. It was spiked downward at the bottom, and outward along its surface, with a number of cruel, upturned barbs. It
looked
massively heavy. 

Hemlock began to despair.
H
ow she could have assumed she’d be able to gain entry into the Tower once she got past the
d
rawbridge?  She felt naive and foolish. 

The Portcullis seemed to loom larger in front of her. She experienced a vision suddenly, of her flesh suspended on those upturned spikes. 

The spikes glistened invitingly in the
darkness.
S
he was sure they could easily support her weight if they were properly embedded in her flesh.
M
aybe it would be a relief to come to such an end.
A
t least it would show she had stubbornly tried to climb the obstacle and had never wavered or considered retreat.

Safreon and Mercuria would be devastated at her loss, but she also knew they would eventually go on with their lives. And she thought they would have been proud of her, after years of recollection, each in their own way. 

She caught herself, as she realized
she was crouched and
ready to spring up and run at the Portcullis!

I
t
was
odd she didn't remember consciously planning to do anything like that.

I
n some instinctive way,
she realized
she had actually been preparing to impale herself on those upturned spikes, just as she
’
d imagined herself doing in her melancholy thoughts of the past few minutes.

Of course, the Portcullis of Infinite Sorrow!

She’d been so relieved to get past the drawbridge she’
d been caught unawares by
the Tower’s next legendary defense
. She became aware of the emotion emanating from the Portcullis then
;
it
washed over her like a slap in the face: feelings of sorrow and despair were rolling over her mind, and they were almost incalculably strong.

S
he had
to act decisively, as s
he realized this was the strongest magic spell she
’
d ever encountered.

The Portcullis
stood
at the end of a shallow tunnel, with an arched roof of masonry formed by the line rendered by the top of the Portcullis, where it met the wall. There was nothing to climb to, and there was no way to climb over. The seam w
here the P
ortcullis met the upper masonry was impenetrable.

She
noted the space behind the P
ortcullis for the first time. It was a shadowy hallway
,
which was a continuation of the one housing the Portcullis. At the end of it, perhaps twenty feet further, there was a pair of large, ornate wooden doors. Between the doors and the inside of the Portcullis, Hemlock beheld the legendary Demonic Gargoyles. 

It
was
said the Gargoyles had been animated from the rafters of the Hall of the Senate on the Night of Ninety-Nine Tears, and they had taken hostage two of the strongest fighters of the City, who were also Senators. It
was
also said they had since rested in eternal guard of the Wizard Tower, and any intruder that managed to defy impossible odds and cross the Moat, enter the Drawbridge, and penetrate the Portcullis, would be torn to bits by them.

T
heir forms were winged and composed of smooth gray granite. Their hindquarters
were
powerful, their hands tipped with talons, and their wings were massive and folded. Their faces were grinning death masks with exaggerated, animalistic features. They inspired an instinctive urge for flight in Hemlock (though it felt weaker than the melancholy attraction of the Portcullis) as she fell under their gaze.

Though they betrayed no properties beyond that of normal stone statues, she felt she was being stalked by cunning and merciless predators.

The sorrow that had almost overcome her moments
before
returned with a renewed force, and overshadowed the fear inspired by the Gargoyles. It was a two-pronged mental assault of fear and melancholy.

S
he needed to act decisively.

She considered the Gargoyles would surely attack her if she somehow managed to get inside the Portcullis. She assumed they would eviscerate her in short order, and the wizards would find her remains in that hallway some days henceforth, and would wonder what impetuous soul had ventured that far within their defenses.

She also considered she really didn’t have any means to bypass the Portcullis. She had a file in her set of lockpicks, but it was small and it would take her weeks to file through that iron. She judged she only had minutes to spare. The temptation of capitulating to the Portcullis railed against her self-control mercilessly, and it held an attractive promise: an end of suffering.

She quickly realized there could be only one solution. She considered an idea that the only force that could possibly open or destroy the Portcullis was the Gargoyles. She wondered whether the wizards had thought of that possibility. She felt her life depended on their having overlooked it.

She assumed the Gargoyles would animate if she entered their side of the hallway. The Portcullis prevented this: but not completely.

She ran up to the Portcullis, and focused her mind completely on resisting the melancholy as she embraced the cruel iron and extended her limbs through the spaces between the bars.

If her initial plan didn’t work, she knew she would soon be hanging from those spikes in a willing
,
dying embrace.

Her hands extended to their full length and reached out toward the Gargoyles. She supported herself with her upper arms as they pressed against the cold bars, and took a low stance, as she also extended her legs through the bars and touched the ground on the other side of the Portcullis with her feet.

The Gargoyles awoke. Their eyes glowed with an anti–light which appeared as some sort of active darkness. They didn't move at first, but all the same, she felt the awakened presence of a great coiled energy, which was building in intensity.

In the space of one breath, the Gargoyles sprung
—
her mind registered the motion; her entire being shouted out a single message that reverberated through her consciousness and was able to drown out even the bittersweet, tragic melancholy of the Portcullis.

JUMP BACK!

She launched backwards into a tumbling somersault as greedy talons rended the ground where her legs had been half a moment before.

The Gargoyles were terrible in their rage, and they seemed to know their prey was close at hand. One, and then the other
,
grasped the slick iron bars, which now separated them from their kill; and with a frenzied effort of unimaginable strength
,
they began to bend the bars askew.

The iron groaned. Perhaps the Portcullis itself groaned
,
as if
imbued with some fell awareness.
Hemlock wasn't sure. Despite the terrible groaning, the Gargoyles steadily bent the iron until they made enough space for the
ir bulk
to pass through.

Sheathing their wings tightly around their bodies, they crawled through the openings.

S
he
’
d made her final gamble and now had to await the result passively. And, as was usual for her gambles, the stakes were nothing less than her very survival.

As the Gargoyles gained purchase on her side of the Portcullis, they slowly moved toward her, menacingly, as if they were savoring the moment of her death.

She rapidly realized  their speed and their strength were far beyond her reckoning.
S
he could not evade them or jump past them–even with her excellent reflexes.