Hemlock And The Wizard Tower (Book 1) (8 page)

"
You are a minion
,
aren’t you?
"
questioned Hemlock skeptically.

"Not exactly–
the bane of my existence is boredom.  T
he wizards torment me with it–
leaving me in empty rooms with nothing going on.  All I can do is sing to pass the time.  If I sing for them and serve as a communication mechanism
for them with my twin brother,
then they teach me new songs or let me watch the experimental magic spells.  That keeps me going and it keeps me cooperative
,
for the most part.
But this
,"
the
Bust
continued
, "
this is a rare ple
asure.  We must drink a toast,
you and I.  Go on
Megan–get the rum and let’s celebrate–
if just for a moment
."

Hemlock glared at the Bust.  I
t was persuasive
,
and she felt chagrined that it had succeeded in casting itself in a sympathetic light.  On the other hand, she considered how she would feel in its place.  If what it said was true,
then
it probably was under the sway of the
wizards
much more
th
a
n it was letting on. 
She considered that it could be trying to trap her in some way. 

Why would it risk their wrath to help me?

"
Why do you drink?
"
she asked as she walked toward the bar and retrieved the glasses and
the
liqu
or. "Does it
affect you?
"

"
Oh yes,
"
it replied
.
"
I
can enjoy spirits just like a man or woman would–
perhaps more
so
since it
hits me immediately, and
lightens my unbearable burden for a time
."

The Bust’s explanation gave Hemlock an idea. 
She located the bottle
of rum
and brought two glasses over to the table where the
Bust
rested.  Placing the glasses on the table she poured two
generous
shots of liquor as the eyes of the Bust looked on with evident
anticipation
.  Leaving the bottle uncorked, she grabbed her glass and then looked at the
Bust
uncertainly.

"Yes,
I’m afraid I will require some a
ssistance in this affair," i
t quipped.

Putting her glass down
,
she used both hands to carefully place the glass to the lips of the
Bust
and tilted the glass gently as the thing drank.  It closed its eyes and made a slight wince and then an exhalation of pleasure.

"
Wonderful…
"
it began to say and then
Hemlock
made her move.  She took the open
bottle in hand
with a quick motion
.  She
covered
the Bust’s
nose
with her other hand
and jammed the bottl
e into its mouth forcefully,
appl
ying
pressure to tilt the
wooden
head backwards. 

The
Bust’s
eyes darted back and forth frantically and she saw its
magically
animated Adam
’
s apple moving spasmodically as it gasped for air and got liquor instead.

She noted that the bottom of the Bust was
green
felt and she began to wonder exactly where the liquor was going.  But she really didn’t see a
ny point to that line of thinking,
and moved on.

When the bottle was nearly empty
,
she pulled it out of the
Bust’s
mouth as it coughed liquor all over her hand.

  She hoped that it had not lied about its
reaction to alcohol
.  She quickly cupped her hand over its mouth as it began to scream and gripped the back of the head for leverage.

The
Bust’s
jaws tried to bite her,
but all they could really do was
clatter together without effect.  The eyes looked furious and then began to glaze over.  After
thirty
seconds
or so, the Bust’s pupils fully dilated
and after another
thirty, the eyes
closed and a pronounced snoring emanated from
its
nose
.

She picked up the slumbering B
ust and moved to a couch which had large faded le
ather pillows.  She placed the B
ust under one of th
em,
wh
ich muffled its snoring
fairly effectively.

A thought
in the back of her mind surfaced. 
The Bust hadn’t bitten down on the bottle.  Or had it?
She reached out and she felt that there was magic in the structure of the bottle. 
It must have been unbreakable.
 

She wondered whether
she
had known that.
  Or had she risked her entire plan on an assumption?  Troubled, she concluded that she must have sensed it subconsciously.

She returned to the bar and uncorked another bottle
.  She
split the contents
of that newer bottle
between the two and then replaced both
of them
in the bar.

She heard some commotion coming from the hall leading out of the room
nearest to
the table where the Bust had been.

Hemlock recalled that i
t had mentioned something about a workroom providing access to the th
ird floor.  That meant people–
which in turn meant danger.  But she believed that the Bust had no reason to lie to her about that
being her best course
.

J
udg
ing
by the commotion
,
the workroom was likely down that right
most
hall.

She moved toward
that exit, aware that her movement
of
the Bust
would be noticed if anyone entered the room; but it was a risk that she had to take
. 

She
mused that maybe people would think that the Bust had a practical joke played on it by another
denizen
of the Tower.
  Still, when it sobered, she knew that it would give her away.
  But
she hoped that
that would leave her plenty of time to do what she needed to do and
make her
escape.

She peered around the corner
of the wall that met
the
rightmost
hallway. 
The hallway beyond
had a gentle curve
to it
and there was a door on either side of it
, some distance from the room in which she stood
.  An increase in brightness could be seen toward the
far
end.

The second circle was about using magic to do work
. 
I guess this is some of their handiwork
.

She could hear what sounded like laughter coming
down the hall ahead of her
.  Then there was a tremendous rumbling sound and a mechanical groan.  Figuring this
sound might serve as
a good distraction
to screen her movements,
she
crept
forward down
the hallway.

There
were small brick alcoves recessed into the
top of the
walls where they met the ceiling
,
which appeared to be smooth granite.  Oddly, she could see no shadow at all within these recesses.

Her
first glimpse of the room
at the end of the hall
showed
that it was
,
in fact
,
the workshop. 
I
t was large
and seemed to span multiple floors of the Tower;
it was
brightly lit (even brighter than the hallway) and there were machines and scurrying workers moving on ladders
which covered
some large metal construct.

She
moved forward a bit to get a full view.  It
was certainly
several stories tall
, and appeared to Hemlock to be deeper than the above ground portion of the Tower, and also rose above her for several floors
.  There was a balcony
on the far
end
of the room
at the same height as her current position, and another balcony on her upper right,
which
appeared
to
be on
the third floor.  The room contained several large metallic cylinders into which a variety of pipes snaked and intertwined.  Dominating the room was a monstrous iron torso with
human-shaped
shoulders and arms
,
but without a head.  It
was located near
the far wall of the room.  She couldn’t tell if it had legs because the balcony
over which she peered
did not allow her to see below the waist of the huge sculpture
.  The
sculpted
figure
was that of an athletic
male
youth whose physical
features
were
rendered in iron
that was smooth and featureless except for seams where the limbs met and where large arrays of bolts and welds could be seen
. 
Man–sized figures
scurried about the
huge torso
on ladders and platforms
, working on the seam areas
. 

A gre
at chain, which was suspended from overhea
d
,
moved across
Hemlock’s
field of vision suddenly, breaking her reverie
.
T
he noise of its passing almost drowned out a sudden drunken song which boomed through the room and elicited laughter at various points
as it sang
.

The voice was that of the Bust that
Hemlock
had just rendered unconscious
, interspersed with a similar sounding, but annoyed voice, which kept telling the other to be silent
.

Had
n't
it mentioned a Brother?

She recalled that the
Bust
had mentioned that it could communicate by some means with
a
twin. 

Hemlock reckoned that
it
was a good thing
that the delivery of the song was slurred almost beyond recognition,
because
she
realized with a sinking feeling that the Bust was singing about
her
. 

Hemlock wondered whether the wizards even had the capacity to consider that an intruder could have entered their stronghold.

Turning aside her concern over the singing, she allowed t
he massive
torso
to catch her attention again–
it was disturbing
to her
on many levels.  It
seemed to s
t
and
there like some looming leviathan and she
imagined
a malevolent head suddenly appearing.

Figures wearing robes
scurried over the
huge sculpture
, directing some type of bestial humanoid figures who carried twin buckets suspended from large boards
,
which the beasts bore across their muscular shoulders.

"Disgusting,"
she muttered to herself
, as she watched the bestial figures and wondered if they had once been men; for she knew that some wizards altered their bodies through magic
.  She
considered that some of those that she observed
might have
actually
been
quite decent folk
,
but in her profes
sion she had to play the odds–
and the odds w
ere that when you encountered a
Wizard
that
the encounter
was not going to have a happy (or peaceful) outcome.