The Unwelcome Warlock loe-11

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Is there anything else, Chairman?”

  “Ithinia might want to know this, if she doesn’t already — Emperor Vond is still alive and still able to work magic.”

  “Emperor Vond?”

  “Yes. He was after my time, but from what the others have told me, surely you’ve heard of him?”

  “I don’t understand,” Rothiel said. “I know the name, but wasn’t the Great Vond a warlock who was Called fifteen years ago?”

  “Yes, he was,” Hanner said. “Or so I am told; I never met him, so far as I recall, and as I said, he didn’t build his empire until after I was gone.”

  “But warlocks can’t do magic any more, can they?”

  “Most of us, no, or we wouldn’t be here, but apparently Vond can. I thought Ithinia should be told.”

  “How is that possible?”

  Hanner glared at the wizard. “How should I know? I can’t do magic anymore! You’re a wizard; you figure it out.”

  “Is Vond with your group, then?”

  “No. He flew off yesterday morning. He took eighty or ninety volunteers with him to reclaim his empire, which I’m told is somewhere in the Small Kingdoms.”

  “Volunteers?” Rothiel’s expression was a mix of fear and bafflement. “Can they still do magic?”

  “No. Or at least, they couldn’t when they left; for all I know, Vond may have taught them by now.”

  “This is very disturbing news. Can any of the other warlocks with you use any magic?”

  “We have about half a dozen theurgists, maybe a score of witches, and a few others, including a handful of wizards and former wizards, but if you mean can anyone else still use warlockry, none that I know of. Someone might be hiding it, I suppose, but I don’t know why anyone would.”

  “Theurgists and witches?” The fear had passed, but Rothiel’s confusion was more obvious than ever. “I thought you were all warlocks.”

  “We were,” Hanner said. “How old are you?”

  “I don’t see —”

  “How old are you?”

  “I don’t see what it has to do with anything, but I’m thirty-one.”

  “Thank you; that’s about what I would have guessed, but one can never be sure with wizards. Then you don’t remember the Night of Madness, but you must have heard about it.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then you know that in that one night, thousands of people went off to Aldagmor, never to be seen again.”

  “Well, yes, but —”

  “And you must have heard that it seemed to strike almost at random.”

  “Yes.”

  “If you choose three or four thousand people at random from the population of the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, how many of them do you think will be magicians?”

  “Oh.” Understanding spread across Rothiel’s face.

  “Now do you see? Most of our magicians were Called on the Night of Madness, snatched away in the middle of the night, without their supplies. A few who became warlocks that night without being Called immediately went on to give up their other magic and live for a time as warlocks, but now that they’ve lost their warlockry, their old magic has returned — though as you might guess, they’re badly out of practice.”

  “I think I see.”

  “We seem to have more witches than one might expect,” Hanner remarked, “but witchcraft and warlockry always seemed to have some similarities, so that’s probably why.”

  “A large part of your group, then, is people who disappeared on the Night of Madness, almost thirty-five years ago?”

  “Yes. I’m sure they were all thought to be long since dead. No one expects to just go home after all this time and pick up where they left off.”

  “Haven’t many of them died of old age?”

  “Oh, didn’t I explain that?” Hanner smiled. “No. The protective spells on the Warlock Stone preserved us all perfectly. We didn’t age a day, whether we were caught there for thirty-four minutes or thirty-four years.”

  “The spell was strong enough to preserve all the warlocks who were ever Called?”

  “This was the source of all warlockry, wizard. It had all the power it would ever need for anything it wanted to do.”

  “Of course. I see. So there are fifteen thousand of you, and most of you disappeared years ago and are now returning unchanged to families that thought you long dead. You understand that this may be...complicated.”

  Hanner glared. “I am not an idiot, Rothiel.”

  “Yes, but this is... This is not what we expected.”

  “It’s not what I expected when I was Called, either, but here we are.”

  Rothiel nodded. “I will speak to Ithinia, and I hope we will be able to assist you soon.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Good night, Hanner, and good luck.”

  With that, the wizard’s workshop suddenly crumbled away, leaving Hanner standing on trampled grass back in Aldagmor, surrounded by sleeping warlocks.

  Then that, too, dissolved, and he was alone in lightless emptiness — clearly, the dream the wizard had sent had ended, but his sleeping mind was not yet ready to let go. He shouted, but there was no one to hear him, and his voice seemed small and faint in the void.

  And then he woke up, his back stiff, a blade of grass tickling one ear. He was cold and damp, lying on cold, damp ground. He was looking at white fabric, though it seemed rather dim. He shivered, then rolled from his side to his back and looked up at a gray sky; clouds had rolled in during the night, and it was not much after dawn. He sat up.

  Sleeping bodies stretched out in every direction, though less so to the south; he had been near the front of the throng. That white fabric was the back of Rudhira’s tunic; she was still wearing the white tunic and green skirt she had worn when she flew off to Aldagmor, all those years ago — clothes she had borrowed from the wardrobe Lord Faran had kept for his mistresses. She had left one green shoe behind on the streets of Ethshar, and somewhere she had lost the other, leaving her feet bare. Her long red hair trailed across the muddy grass.

  Finding her among the crowd in Aldagmor had been a shock for Hanner; despite Sensella’s warnings and his conversation with Rayel, it had not been until he saw Rudhira that the effects of the time-stopping protective spells around the Warlock Stone really hit home. Rudhira was the same lovely young woman she had been when she flew away, just a few days after the Night of Madness; if anything, she was prettier than he had remembered.

  She hadn’t recognized him. He had aged seventeen years, and she, not at all. She had been a few years older than he when they first met in Witch Alley; now she was at least a decade younger.

  She had been a streetwalker before the Night of Madness; then, for a few days, she had been the most powerful warlock in Ethshar of the Spices.

  What would she be now?

  Rothiel had said their situation was complicated, and Hanner was well aware that he was right. Twenty thousand former warlocks were about to start arriving in the towns and villages and cities of the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, and the Baronies of Sardiron, and the other realms of the World. Some of them might have friends and family eager to welcome them back, but most would not. Some would have other trades to pursue now that they could no longer be warlocks, but others would not; someone who had apprenticed to a warlock at age twelve, had studied and practiced nothing but magic, and had earned a living for his or her entire adult life with that magic, did not have a great many career choices open to him. The younger people could still learn new trades, but what was a man of forty or fifty supposed to do? A man of that age could not join the city guard, which was the last resort for a youth who never found an apprenticeship or other job.

  Hanner very much feared that many of his companions here might wind up sleeping in the Hundred-Foot Field, begging for scraps.

  It was possible, though unlikely, that he would wind up doing that. After all, he had never been apprenticed to a trade; before becoming a warlock he had wo
rked for his Uncle Faran, who was long dead. He had inherited some money and property when Lord Faran died, but he had more of less turned the mansion over to the Council of Warlocks, and he might not be able to reclaim it — it was a long-established principle that Called warlocks were legally dead. His money was almost certainly long gone. Even before his Calling, he had spent most of his fortune on magic of one sort or another — especially those blasted Transporting Tapestries.

  He knew now what had happened to him, how his experiment with the tapestries had gone wrong. He had simply been unprepared for the impact of the sudden return of the Calling after the mental silence in that refuge. His mind had had no time to adjust, no chance to restore the barriers he had built up and then let fall.

  He did not know, though, what had become of the tapestry that led to the refuge. Sensella had never heard of it, nor had any of the four or five other people he had spoken to who had been Called from Ethshar of the Spices after his own departure. It ought to be worth something, he thought. Whoever possessed that tapestry controlled access to a miniature world; surely, that was valuable to someone.

  Mavi might have it, he thought. Or Zallin, though it had been Hanner’s property, not the Council’s. Or maybe it had been lost, or destroyed.

  And what would become of Warlock House? The Council no longer had any reason to exist, so perhaps Hanner could reclaim the house, since he had never formally relinquished ownership.

  Besides, he had connections. Surely, Mavi was still alive, and his children, and there was no reason to think they would be poor. His two sisters and their families were wealthy and successful, and surely they would have seen to it that Mavi and Faran and Arris and Hala were safe and comfortable. They should be glad to see him return, as well. Oh, it was possible that ruin and doom had somehow befallen them all, but it was vanishingly unlikely. He had no reason to worry too much about his own future; he would be fine.

  But what about all these other people? Hanner looked out at the crowd; some of them were beginning to stir, to sit or stand. What would become of them all? He pulled his black tunic tight across his chest, shivering.

  He looked down at the sleeping Rudhira. What would become of her? Would she go back to Camptown, and a life of warming soldiers’ beds? What would happen when she got too old to interest them?

  Hanner had never really thought about that before; what did happen to old whores? He had never had much contact with any — well, any other than Rudhira. He knew some of them wound up as beggars, sleeping in the Hundred-Foot Field, but surely not all of them. Maybe some of them married soldiers, or found other work.

  But there were plenty of people here whose prospects weren’t even that good. Some of them might end up not just as beggars, but as slaves — there probably wasn’t enough room in the Hundred-Foot Field for all of them, and slavers were free to take any homeless person they found elsewhere in the city.

  Maybe the people who had gone with Vond had been the smart ones; in fact, maybe they should all think about heading for the Small Kingdoms...

  “Hanner,” someone said. He started, and turned to find Sensella standing a few yards away, looking at him.

  “Yes?”

  “Should we start waking them up?”

  Hanner considered that, then spread his hands. “No,” he said. “Let them rest while they can. We’re going to have a long day.”

  Sensella nodded. “Do you have any idea how far it is to Ethshar?”

  “Fifty leagues, maybe? Sixty? But I hope we won’t be walking that far; I’ve heard from the wizards.”

  “What?”

  “I heard from the wizards. In a dream.”

  Sensella looked confused and unconvinced.

  “It’s called the Spell of Invaded Dreams,” Hanner explained. “They can appear to you while you sleep. Someone named Rothiel of Wizard Street spoke to me.”

  “I never heard of him. Are you sure it wasn’t just an ordinary dream?”

  Hanner hesitated.

  Up until she asked, he had never doubted the dream’s authenticity, but now that he thought about it, he had no actual proof that it had been magical in origin. The proof would come when Guildmaster Ithinia sent the promised aid.

  “Well,” he said, “we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  Chapter Ten

  Ithinia of the Isle slumped in the wicker chair, drumming her fingers on its woven arm as she considered the reports she had just received. She had the latest accounts from the wizards she had assigned to investigate various matters, from her agents in the city guard and the overlord’s palace, from the network of spies the Guild maintained throughout the city and the Small Kingdoms, and from the witches and theurgists she had consulted. They all confirmed the simple, obvious truth.

  The source of the warlocks’ magic was gone.

  She supposed she should have expected this. That thing in Aldagmor had been calling for something for more than thirty years; was it really such a shock that it had finally been answered?

  But who would have expected it to be so sudden?

  Most of the mess wasn’t really significant. Ethshar had gotten along without warlocks for centuries, and it could get along without them again. Having a bunch of suddenly-powerless magicians around was a nuisance, but most of them would probably find places for themselves eventually. The ones who hadn’t yet been Called should be no problem at all.

  That huge mob working its way south from Aldagmor, on the other hand, was more awkward. By wizardly standards most of them were young, and thanks to their now-vanished magic most of them were disgustingly healthy, so they should manage well enough, but Ethshar’s economy hadn’t had to absorb so many people all at once since the end of the Great War, and there would inevitably be some disruption.

  She sighed. There would undoubtedly be some unfortunate results — more crime, more beggars, more slaves taken. A few decades, though, and it would all be out of the way. Wizards as old and powerful as Ithinia tended to take the long view.

  Besides, if this sudden flood of people was too inconvenient, some of them could be removed. There were any number of spells that could trim excess population. Killing them would be ugly, and should be avoided if at all possible, but petrifying most of them until the situation improved wouldn’t be so very terrible; many of them were already decades out of their own time, and a few more years would scarcely matter. If anyone could perform Llarimuir’s Mass Transmogrification, they could be turned to trees or some other relatively inert creature; that might be preferable to petrifaction. Ithinia didn’t know the spell herself, but there were wizards far more powerful than she.

  Those former warlocks in Aldagmor could be handled.

  Vond, on the other hand, might be real trouble. According to every source that mentioned him, he still had his ability to draw warlock-like power from the towers in Lumeth. Details, unfortunately, were scarce; scrying spells directed at him had failed. This might be because no one knew his true name, and divinations directed at an individual were never reliable without that, or it might be that his new magic blocked wizardry just as much as true warlockry had. Certainly, every manifestation of his power to date had behaved exactly like warlockry.

  Ithinia blinked as she considered that. The towers were sorcerous in nature — an ancient high sorcery that was long lost, not the feeble sort of thing modern sorcerers could do. Did that mean the Warlock Stone had been sorcerous in nature?

  But everyone knew that warlockry was somehow related to witchcraft; then was witchcraft related to sorcery? It certainly didn’t appear to be.

  She shook her head. This was not the time to ponder some grand theory of unified magic. She needed to decide what to do about Vond. He was reported to be on his way back to his empire, if he had not already reached it. The Wizards’ Guild could not simply ignore him if he had indeed returned to Semma; they had issued an edict that no warlocks were permitted within twenty leagues of Lumeth, and they could not allow Vond to defy that edict. The Guild
did not assert its authority in such matters very often, but when it did, it had to be absolutely ruthless, giving not the slightest hint of weakness.

  They would probably need to kill Vond. If it came to that, it had to be done quickly and effectively. That affair with Tabaea and her enchanted dagger had not done the Guild’s reputation any good at all, and they could not afford a repetition. If they did decide to kill Vond, it needed to work cleanly on the first attempt, and it needed to be very clear that this was the Guild enforcing its ultimatum.

  The problem was, of course, that wizardry didn’t work properly on warlocks. Every warlock, no matter how feeble, was effectively guarded by powerful protective spells simply by being a warlock.

  But that had only really been tested on ordinary warlocks; it was not clear whether it would hold true with Vond. He might be just as well protected as any other warlock, or he might be completely unguarded, or he might be totally immune to wizardry — no one knew, and there was no safe way to test it without his cooperation.

  Somehow, Ithinia doubted that the Great Vond, self-proclaimed emperor, would agree to help wizards test his vulnerabilities. The question then became, what spell could be absolutely certain to kill Vond on the first attempt?

  The Seething Death had worked on Tabaea, but it had done significant damage in the process, and stopping it had required the use of forbidden magic; Ithinia had no desire to see anything like that used against Vond.

  The Call of Celestial Debris might work, but it would probably flatten half of Semma in the process. Since it involved purely physical projectiles, Vond’s magic shouldn’t interfere with the spell itself.

  But on second thought, Ithinia realized, if he saw the meteors coming, he was probably powerful enough to deflect them. That wouldn’t do.

  The Devouring Earth wouldn’t work; Vond could fly. He wouldn’t fall when the ground opened beneath him.

  The Spell of the Smoke Noose would probably just evaporate when it hit his magical barriers, and from what Vond had done during his first reign it was possible he no longer needed to breathe, so even if it didn’t collapse, it might not kill him.