Emmis was unsure what they had been doing when he first entered the room, whether they had been talking amongst themselves or not, but the moment Gita started toward them they had all turned and stared silently at her approach, and at Emmis behind her. That did not strike him as entirely normal behavior, but after all, they were foreigners, and couldn't be expected to have any manners.
Then the woman smiled at him, and while she was at least a decade older than he was and no great beauty to begin with, that at least made him feel less like an intruder. "Gita, my dear," she said, speaking Ethsharitic with a truly barbarous accent, "is this the young man you told us about?"
"Annis, this is Emmis of Shiphaven," the innkeeper's niece said with a curtsey, and Emmis suddenly found himself thrust forward, and his hand released.
The three men still hadn't moved or spoken, but the woman waved at a vacant chair. "Have a seat, Emmis of Shiphaven!" Her accent was thicker than Lar's, but Emmis did not think it was the same; she spoke her vowels through her nose. While she was obviously from the Small Kingdoms, he didn't think she was from the same one that had produced the Vondish ambassador.
There was clearly something going on here that he didn't understand, but none of these people looked particularly dangerous, and no one was likely to do anything violent here in a public house. Warily, keeping his eyes on the woman, Emmis sat down.
"I am Annis the Merchant," the foreign woman said. "I hope you don't mind that I sent Gita upstairs to see if you would join us."
Emmis gave the innkeeper's niece a quick glance, but she was hurrying away toward the kitchen, carefully not looking at him.
"Ah," Emmis said. "You did that?" Gita had done an excellent job of getting him here without mentioning that she had been sent to find him.
"Yes. And of course you want to know why."
"Well, yes."
"Of course. You would be a fool not to wonder, and I'm sure you are not a fool." She smiled again. "Are you?"
Emmis did not care to answer that. "Who are you people?" he asked. "What do you want with me?"
"I told you, I am Annis the Merchant. These three are, if I have the names right, Neyam, Morkai, and Hagai, all of them from Lumeth of the Towers."
The three men shifted at the sound of their names, and it occurred to Emmis that they might not understand Ethsharitic. They gave no sign they were following the conversation. Emmis did not think he had ever heard of Lumeth of the Towers, which meant it was almost certainly one of the Small Kingdoms. Emmis did not know much about the lands outside the city walls, but he was fairly sure he had at least heard a mention of every nation outside the Small Kingdoms, from Kerroa to Shan on the Desert, or from the Pirate Towns to Srigmor.
But he hadn't heard of all the Small Kingdoms simply because there were too many.
"And where are you from?" Emmis asked. "You don't sound Vondish, and I notice you said they were from Lumeth, not we are."
"Ah, not a fool at all! I am from Ashthasa, on the South Coast."
Emmis had heard of Ashthasa, and even met a few Ashthasan sailors, and now that she said the name, her accent did seem to fit, and her coloring was dark enough. She might be telling the truth.
One of the Lumethans said something in what sounded like Trader's Tongue, and Annis made a quick, brief reply. Emmis thought she was telling him to shut up until he had been introduced, but Emmis's command of Trader's Tongue was almost as weak as he had told Lar it was, and Annis spoke Trader's Tongue with that same thick Ashthasan accent she had in Ethsharitic, so he was not at all sure of his interpretation.
"They don't speak Ethsharitic, do they?" he asked.
Annis smiled at him again. "If they do, they won't admit it," she said. "I take it you don't speak Trader's Tongue? Morkai wanted to know what we were discussing, and I said we were still on introductions."
That matched what he had heard reasonably well. "Shall we get beyond the introductions, then? What did you want with me?"
"To the point. You are working for the Vondishman? The one in the red coat and plumed hat?"
Emmis wondered whether the woman was exaggerating her accent; if she knew the Ethsharitic word for "plumed" she had to be pretty fluent.
"He hired me to find him a residence, yes." Emmis didn't see any reason to admit to more than that.
"Ah, is that where you were today?"
"Yes."
"Did you find him one?"
"I did. Why do you want to know?"
She leaned back in her chair. "Do you know where Ashthasa is?"
"You just told me – it's on the South Coast, in the Small Kingdoms."
"But do you know where it is relative to the Empire of Vond? And how big it is, and how big the Empire of Vond is?"
"No," Emmis admitted.
"Our entire eastern frontier is with the Empire," she said. "It was our border with the kingdom of Quonshar, until the Great Warlock conquered Quonshar three years ago, together with all the lands beyond. Where there were once eight other kingdoms along the coast to the east of Ashthasa, there is now only the empire, reaching from our border to the very edge of the World, and Quonshar is merely the westernmost province of Vond. There are more than a dozen other provinces in the empire, and while Quonshar is one of the smallest provinces, all by itself it's larger than Ashthasa. If the empire should decide to extend its borders ever so slightly, my homeland would vanish, and become Vond's eighteenth province; we could not possibly resist them effectively."
Emmis glanced at the three silent men.
"And Lumeth of the Towers – well, it's inland, not on the coast. It's one of the larger lands in the Small Kingdoms, though of course it's nothing compared with the Empire of Vond, or the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars. A few years ago it bordered on nine other kingdoms; four of them are now provinces of Vond, and Lumeth is half-surrounded. If you were to look at a map of the empire – you know what a map is?"
"Yes," Emmis said. "I've seen maps."
"Good. Well, if you had a map of the Empire of Vond, you would see that it's shaped a little like a half-moon, with the sea and the desert around the curve to the south and east, and the rest of the Small Kingdoms to the north and west of the flat side. Except that the border isn't straight. There's a piece broken off the western tip – that's Ashthasa. And there's a bite out of the middle – that's the southern part of Lumeth. So they're worried about the empire just as my own people are."
"Oh," Emmis said.
"So we are all very, very interested in everything the empire does, and when the Imperial Council and the Regent send an envoy to Ethshar of the Spices, well, naturally, we want to know who he is, and what he's doing, and why. I am telling you this openly to save time; I could have made up some elaborate story, but why should I? You have no ties to Vond, and we are not asking you to do anything terrible. We just want to know whether you can tell us anything about why this Vondishman is in Ethshar."
Emmis glanced at the three silent Lumethans, then looked Annis in the eye.
"What's in it for me?" he asked.
Chapter Four
Emmis had never greatly concerned himself with ethical issues. Unloading freighters generally did not present a lot of difficult moral choices.
One of the rules he and the other dockworkers lived by, though, was that you finished the job you were on before you took another one, even if the new employer offered higher pay. Walking off one job to start the next meant you weren't trustworthy, weren't reliable.
And you didn't steal from the people who hired you. That was even worse. A thief who got caught would never work on the waterfront again.
But if the captain left you sitting on the dock while he got the paperwork done or dickered with a buyer, there was no rule that said you couldn't answer a few questions for interested merchants, or that they couldn't give a hard-working young man a copper bit or two in exchange for telling them just how many planks of planed hickory, or crates of tarragon, you and your fellows had really hauled out of the
hold, even if it didn't match what the owner claimed he had available.
It wasn't as if Lar had told him anything important, after all. In fact, Lar had specifically refused to tell him just what the actual purpose of his stay in Ethshar was, and if Lar was keeping that secret, then presumably anything Lar had told him was not secret.
So why not pick up a little extra money while he waited for the ambassador to come back from wherever he had gone? That was what Emmis told himself while Annis and the three Lumethans argued in Trader's Tongue.
He kept an eye on the front door as they bickered; if Lar should walk in just then, Emmis wanted to be ready to put some distance between himself and the four foreigners. He also listened, though, while trying not to let on that he could understand about one word in five of the debate.
The Lumethans seemed to find his willingness to talk to them suspicious, while Annis appeared to be arguing that it was plain old Ethsharitic greed, that Ethsharites would sell their own children if the price was right. They also seemed to disagree as to whether the costs should be split two ways or four, by country or by individual.
And there was the question of how much to offer him, up front or in installments – Emmis did know all the numbers in Trader's Tongue, and was reasonably pleased by what he heard.
Finally, Annis turned back to him and said, "Two rounds for what he's told you so far, and another round for every new item you bring us."
"Silver?"
Annis looked genuinely shocked. "Gods, no!" she said. "Just copper!"
Emmis turned up a palm. "It was worth asking." It hadn't really been, as far as any honest doubt might be concerned, but it did make plain to these four that while Ethsharites might be greedy, they weren't cheap. He had also understood enough of the Trader's Tongue to know that two rounds was the opening bid, not a final offer – for one thing, he was fairly certain that they had compromised on a three-way split, and eight bits didn't divide by three. "Perhaps half a dozen rounds?"
"For a litle conversation?"
"Four rounds, then?"
"We'll meet you halfway. Three rounds to start, a dozen bits for each additional item."
That was what he had expected. "Good enough," he said. "Though perhaps some items might be worth more? After all, isn't your entire kingdom at stake?"
"They might be," Annis conceded.
"Buy me a beer, then, to moisten my throat while we speak, and you have a deal."
Annis beckoned to Gita, mimed gulping beer, and pointed at Emmis. Gita nodded, and bustled away.
That done, Annis folded her hands on the table and leaned forward. "Now, lad, tell us about the Vondishman."
"Until my beer gets here and your money's in my hand, tell me first what you already know, so I won't waste your time. How did you know to talk to me? How did you know he was here at all?"
Annis smiled, and reached down to her purse as she said, "Our governments keep an eye on things in the Vondish ports, of course, and your man didn't make any secret of his departure, or where he was going, so Prince Sammel invested in the services of a magician, who located the Vondishman, and the Prince sent word to me that I'd find him here at the Crooked Candle." She dumped a handful of copper on the table, and began counting out eight bits. "I came here and waited, and sure enough, there he was at breakfast this morning, and there you were with him, and that was when I decided I wanted to talk to you, and paid Gita here..." She nodded toward the serving girl, who was just then lowering a tray of well-filled beer mugs over Emmis's shoulder. "...paid her to bring you to me." She pushed the little pile of coins across the table, and Emmis began counting them into his own purse.
"And them?" Emmis paused in his counting and gestured at the Lumethans, who were digging into their own purses for their share.
"Oh, they showed up later this morning, and started asking everyone stupid questions in Trader's Tongue or Lumethan or Gajamorish, and I'm sure you can guess how helpful that was. You'd think Lumeth could have found someone who spoke Ethsharitic! Anyway, I talked them into joining me so that they wouldn't alert the entire city with their babbling."
Emmis nodded, and watched the Lumethans push forward a stack of coins.
"So how did you meet the Vondishman, and why did he hire you?"
Emmis took a swig of beer, and began describing how he had met Lar Samber's son, and what had happened thereafter.
It didn't take long, since after all, most of their time together had been spent in Emmis teaching Lar a few things about Ethshar, rather than Lar saying or doing anything that would interest the Prince of Ashthasa, or that might concern whoever was in charge of things in Lumeth of the Towers. He had barely finished his first beer when he ran out of things to say.
He glanced at the Lumethans, who had listened to all this without giving any indication they understood a word of it. They were being very patient, Emmis thought. They probably trusted Annis to relay the important parts after Emmis had left.
"Ambassador," Annis said, leaning back in her chair and staring at him.
"Yes," Emmis said. "Ambassador plenipotentiary."
"But he's interested in magicians."
"Warlocks in particular."
"How do warlocks concern an ambassador?"
"I have no idea. Didn't you say, though, that the Empire of Vond was created by a warlock?"
"It was. By Vond the Great. That's where the name comes from."
"What happened to him? Is he still running things?"
Annis shook her head. "No. He flew away to the north and never came back – but he might return someday, which is why the empire has a regent instead of an emperor."
"Flew off to...? Oh." Suddenly the history of the Empire of Vond made sense.
Emmis didn't know much about magic, and what he did know mostly came from idle conversation with sailors and dockworkers, so he knew more about wind elementals and propulsion spells than he did about love charms or any of the more usual enchantments – not that he could be sure any of what he knew was accurate; seafarers' gossip was not exactly famous for its reliability. He knew sailors didn't think witchcraft was good for anything but healing, that wizardry was the best way to help a vessel cross the sea, that ships passing near the Pirate Towns often carried demonologists to defend themselves.
He knew that sometimes warlocks would take ship heading south, bound for anywhere in the World that was farther away from Aldagmor.
There was something in the mountains of Aldagmor, sixty leagues north of Ethshar, that gave warlocks their power – and after they had used a certain amount of that power, demanded they pay for it with their lives. The warlocks named it the Calling, and any warlock who heard it felt an irresistible compulsion to go to Aldagmor. Some walked, some rode, but most flew. Nothing could hold them, once they heard the Calling; they would use their magic to shatter locks or chains, burst any bonds, in their desperation to make that journey to Aldagmor.
And none of them ever came back.
No one knew what was out there in the mountains; no one had ever come back from there, not since the Night of Madness when warlockry first appeared, a few months before Emmis was born.
Sane warlocks resisted the Calling as long as they could, and the farther they were from Aldagmor, the longer they could hold out. Every old sailor had a tale or two about warlocks who had fled to the Small Kingdoms or the western coasts, trying to put more distance between himself and whatever it was that was summoning them.
The Empire of Vond, if Emmis understood the geography correctly, was at the far end of the Small Kingdoms, on the southern edge of the World and the edge of the Great Eastern Desert. It was, in fact, as far from Aldagmor as it was possible to get in that direction.
This Vond the Great Warlock must have gone there trying to escape the Calling, and built himself an empire for some reason, perhaps just as a distraction, but then the Calling had gotten him anyway. He had gone to Aldagmor, and would never come back – but the people he left in charge of his empire didn
't want to admit that, so this Sterren of Semma person called himself "regent" instead of "emperor."
Annis didn't seem to realize that. She had said that Vond might return someday, but as Emmis understood it, that wasn't going to happen. Warlocks didn't come back.
"If the ambassador is looking for warlocks here in Ethshar, do you think it might be Vond himself that he's looking for?" Annis asked. "Could the Great Warlock be hiding in the Wizards' Quarter?"
"Um?" Emmis had been lost in his own thoughts, and had to think a moment to realize what the Ashthasan was asking him. "Oh. No, I don't think so."
"He was from Ethshar."
"Yes, but I don't think he came back here." If she didn't know about the Calling, or thought it was reversible, he didn't see any reason to explain it to her. It wasn't any great secret in Ethshar, and if the news had never reached Ashthasa – well, in that case they clearly didn't have any warlocks there, so she didn't need to know.
But Emmis now had an idea what Lar's secret mission might be. If the Empire of Vond had been created by a warlock, and that warlock was gone, maybe the ambassador was here looking for a new warlock. There were certainly plenty of them in the city, and any who had reached the nightmare threshold, the point when the Calling had started to trouble their dreams but had not yet affected them when they were awake, would probably be very interested in a trip to the southern edge of the World.
What did the empire need a warlock for, really?
Annis had apparently followed a similar line of reasoning, because at that point in his thoughts she said, "Do you think the Vondishman might be looking for another warlock?"
"I don't know," Emmis said. "He might be. Is there some important magic that they need done?"
Annis turned up both palms. "Who knows?" she said. "The Imperial Council does not exactly send bulletins to all its neighbors."
One of the Lumethans asked her a question in Trader's Tongue before Emmis could think of anything more to say. Annis replied, giving Emmis time to mull over his theory.
If the empire had sent Lar to fetch them a new warlock because Vond had been Called, they presumably had some use for a warlock. Their first, Vond himself, had apparently used his magic to conquer the seventeen kingdoms that now made up the empire named for him.
The Vondish Ambassador Page 3