The Unwilling Warlord

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  That done, he conquered Skaia on the twenty-fourth.

  Enmurinon went next, on the third of Longdays, followed by Akalla of the Diamond on the fourteenth. He took special care there, due to the presence of the port, and inquired after recent arrivals, hoping for word of immigrating warlocks.

  He was disappointed by the replies he received, and on the nineteenth he returned to his palace in a foul temper.

  He concentrated on other affairs for several days after that, building roads, tenements, and market-halls, getting acquainted with his new concubines, and dealing with his subjects.

  Rather to his surprise, he found that he did not enjoy actually ruling his empire. Settling disputes, administering justice, appointing officials, and the other traditional duties of royalty were dull and time-consuming, and provided no opportunity for him to display his magic.

  Sterren had been expecting this realization. He had long ago concluded that kings were no happier than anybody else. Furthermore, he had noticed that for some time now Vond had only seemed really comfortable and alert when using huge amounts of magic, as if warlockry were an addictive drug. When the warlock finally confessed his disappointment, late one night in a quiet torchlit arcade overlooking the palace courtyard, Sterren simply nodded and agreed, without comment.

  “You don’t seem surprised,” Vond said, irritably.

  “I’m not,” Sterren said. “I never thought ruling looked like much fun.”

  The warlock settled more deeply into the sling chair he sat upon. “It isn’t,” he growled, “but it should be.”

  “Why?” Sterren asked.

  “Because I want it to be,” Vond snapped.

  Sterren made no reply.

  After a moment of disgruntled silence, Vond said, “I just won’t do it any more.”

  “Won’t do what?”

  “I won’t deal with all these petty details—who owns what, how to punish this thief or reward that soldier, where to put the roads, how to collect the taxes, how much coin to mint—I won’t do it.”

  “Someone has to,” Sterren pointed out, “or your empire will fall apart.”

  “I don’t have to. You do. You’re my chancellor, aren’t you? I just decided what that means—it’s your job to take care of anything I don’t want to be bothered with.” Vond smiled an unusually unpleasant smile. “I’ll announce it in the morning; you’ll be in charge of the administration of the empire. I’ll take care of what I’m good at—building and conquest.”

  Sterren had hoped and feared this might happen. After all, he was the only person Vond trusted. To all the native inhabitants of his empire, the warlock was something of a monster, alien and inhumanly powerful, conquering entire kingdoms in a single day; none of them could speak to him without fear, and he dealt with them, in general, with contempt. Besides, very few were really fluent in Ethsharitic, and Vond had not yet bothered to learn any other tongues. Warlockry, unlike witchcraft, did nothing at all to enhance his linguistic abilities. Warlockry was a purely physical sort of magic; it could not teach.

  The other magicians were less contemptible than the ordinary citizens, but still did not provide very good company for the new emperor. From the start, both Annara and Ederd had held back visibly, refusing to speak openly with Vond, and he had noticed this reticence. Agor’s Ethsharitic was an impediment, and his eccentric behavior, cultivated since childhood to add an aura of mystery, was another.

  That left Sterren as Vond’s only friend, the only person he could talk with as one human being to another, and despite Vond’s denials, Sterren was quite sure that the warlock was miserably lonely.

  He had expected other warlocks to come and join him, and was growing ever more confused and dismayed at their failure to materialize. This drove him, more and more, to talk away long hours with Sterren.

  Sterren was no warlock; he was unnaturally lucky with dice, but otherwise could barely stir a cat’s whisker with his magic. Still, he had known Vond when Vond was powerless, and he knew something about how warlockry functioned, and he was not cowed by the imperial might. That made him an invaluable companion.

  And Sterren had guessed that it might in time make him Vond’s partner in empire, as well.

  Now that that guess had come true, he was ready. This was an opportunity far too good to miss. He could do far more to prevent tyranny if he were himself involved in governing.

  He had seen, over the last few months, that Vond’s decisions, as emperor, tended to be quick and careless. He did not concern himself with right or wrong, with what would be best for those involved, but only with what was most expedient, what would settle matters most quickly, rather than most equitably.

  Now he could change that.

  He had no illusions about his own governing ability, however. He knew himself well enough to suspect that he, too, would opt for expediency after a few boring days.

  “I’ll accept that on one condition,” he said.

  Vond looked at him sharply. “Who are you, to be setting conditions?” he demanded.

  “I’m your Lord Chancellor, your Imperial Majesty,” Sterren replied mildly.

  Vond could hardly deny that, but he was not so easily soothed. “What condition?” he demanded.

  “That I may delegate my authority as I please,” Sterren said. “Because as I said, I never thought ruling looked like fun, and I don’t want to be saddled with the job any more than you do. I don’t mind doing a share, certainly, but I don’t want to spend my days divvying up strayed cattle any more than you do.”

  Vond considered this. “Fair enough,” he said.

  The next morning Vond set out to conquer Hluroth, and Sterren set out to establish the Imperial Council.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The Chancellor’s Guard came in handy on occasion; it had saved Sterren a good deal of trouble to simply tell Alder, “Take as many men as you need, but I want Lady Kalira of Semma here in an hour.”

  Then all he had to do was sit in his chosen room, a small study on the second floor of Semma Castle, and wait, and an hour later, Lady Kalira glared at him across the table.

  “I’m here,” she said without preamble. “What do you want?”

  Sterren noted, with hope and admiration, that she did not call him a traitor or otherwise insult him.

  “Your help,” he said.

  Her angry glare softened to curiosity. “What sort of help?” she demanded warily.

  “In running the empire.”

  “Empire!” She snorted.

  Sterren shrugged, using both the Ethsharitic shoulder-bob and the Semman gesture of spread fingers and a downturned palm. “Call it what you like,” he said. “Like it or not, the warlock has united several kingdoms now, I can’t say how many since he’s in the process of adding at least one more even as we speak, and I think I can call it an empire.” He had had plenty of time to improve his Semmat in recent months, and spoke it easily now. “I didn’t come here to argue about names,” he concluded.

  “Maybe I did, though,” Lady Kalira retorted.

  “I hope not,” Sterren said.

  For a moment neither spoke. Then Lady Kalira said, “All right, what’s your offer?”

  “You know Vond named me chancellor,” Sterren said.

  “Whatever that means,” she answered, nodding.

  “He’s just decided that it means I’m to take care of all the administrative details that he doesn’t want to bother with,” Sterren explained.

  Lady Kalira considered this, and then smiled. “And I suppose,” she said, “that you intend to palm the job off on me.”

  “Not exactly,” Sterren said, “but I admit you’re close. I want you to tell me who I should pass it on to.”

  “Should?”

  “Yes, should. Who could do the best job of it, and who would do the best job of it. I know I’d botch it.”

  “You do?” She eyed him carefully.

  He nodded.

  “I think you’ll need to tell me a little
more of what you had in mind,” she said.

  “What I had in mind,” Sterren told her, “is an Imperial Council, a group of the best administrators we can find, who would actually run the empire. Vond isn’t particularly interested in doing that, and neither am I. Besides, Vond isn’t going to be around for all that long, and I don’t suppose I’ll be very welcome once he’s gone. A group of well-respected natives would be able to keep things going smoothly, regardless of what Vond and I do.”

  “Why isn’t he going to be around very long?” Lady Kalira asked, staring at him.

  “I can’t tell you that,” Sterren replied uncomfortably.

  “You said the same thing months ago, and he’s still here,” she pointed out.

  Sterren shrugged again. “So far, yes,” he said.

  “And you still say he won’t be for long?”

  “He can’t be,” Sterren insisted.

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” Sterren said again.

  Lady Kalira considered this, and then asked, “Can you tell me how long he’ll be around?”

  “No. Maybe a month, maybe a year or two. I don’t think he can possibly last five years.”

  “Did you hire an assassin, or something?” she asked curiously. “The cult of Demerchan, perhaps?”

  “No,” Sterren said. “Why would I do something stupid like that? He isn’t doing me any harm. In fact, he isn’t doing much of anybody else any harm, either. Look at the peasants out there—they’re doing just fine! Nobody’s complaining except the deposed nobles, and even you aren’t really suffering much! And here I am, on top of it all, offering you a chance to get back into running the government!”

  Lady Kalira studied him closely, and then shook her head. “I don’t understand you, Sterren,” she said. “I don’t understand you at all.”

  “I don’t care if you understand me or not; I just want your help in putting together this council. I thought seven members would be about right—no ties in the voting that way. And I don’t want it to be hereditary, exactly, since we can’t afford to have any infants or incompetents on it, but perhaps members could have the right to appoint their heirs. I don’t want any of the deposed kings on it, either—it wouldn’t look right unless we included all of them, and I hope that you, as a Semman, will see why I don’t want that.”

  Lady Kalira smiled involuntarily at this reference to her former sovereign. Sterren took this as encouragement.

  “I suppose princes or princesses might be all right, but I’ll leave that up to you,” he continued. “I don’t know much about any of the people around here; I never really got to know most of them. I’d like you to choose the people you think I really need to have, to start. You’re welcome to take a seat on the Council yourself, if you like, and I thought maybe the steward, Algarven, would be a good choice, but I’ll defer to your judgement.” He hesitated, and then said, “I think we probably don’t want all seven to be Semman, and in fact, I think a good mix of nationalities would be wise, but on the other hand, Semma is the capital province, so at least one or two ... what do you think?”

  “I think,” Lady Kalira said slowly, “that I need to know more about the duties of this proposed council.”

  Sterren smiled, and said, “What would you suggest? Vond has claimed building and conquest for himself, and left everything else to me. I prefer to leave it to a council. What would you recommend?”

  “You’re really serious about this?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  She sighed.

  By the time Vond returned from the successful subjugation of Hluroth they had selected four of the seven councillors, and were discussing meeting schedules.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  It was the ninth of Harvest, in the Year of Human Speech 5221. The Empire of Vond extended from the deserts in the east to the ocean in the west, and from the edge of the World in the south to the borders of Lumeth of the Towers in the north.

  Vond had turned back before attacking Lumeth, and had returned to his citadel trembling.

  “I heard the whisper there, even over the power I draw on,” he told Sterren. “I’d forgotten what it was like. Foul, dark muttering in my mind—awful!” He took a deep breath, then released it slowly. “I almost think I can still hear it,” he said, “but I know it’s just my mind playing tricks on me.”

  Sterren hesitated, then said nothing.

  “Well,” Vond went on, “I know where my limits are now, at any rate. I don’t dare ever venture past the borders of Lumeth or Kalithon or Shassalla, but here to the south of them, I’m all-powerful.”

  Sterren did not argue with Vond’s claim. “It’s too bad,” he remarked instead. “I was curious about what would happen if you got really close to the towers themselves. Aren’t they the source of your power?”

  Vond nodded. “I was curious, too, but I won’t risk finding out. It’s too bad; I’d have preferred to have control over the towers.”

  That had been sixnights before, early in the month of Longdays, and that unexpected defeat had been followed by more than half a dozen quick victories over the tiny port nations of the South Coast west of Akalla, victories that had extended Vond’s empire as far as it could safely go. Now, on the ninth of Harvest, Sterren stood on a balcony and looked out across the countryside.

  The land was a rich green from horizon to horizon, punctuated only by roads and buildings and the bright colors of flowers; thanks to Vond’s control of the weather and reworking of the soil there were no barren spots, nowhere that the earth failed to yield generously.

  Straight, smooth roads paved with stone stretched out from the plaza below the citadel, leading directly to each of the towns and castles of the empire.

  The village that surrounded Semma Castle still stood, but was equalled in size and far outdone in splendor by the town growing up around Vond’s palace, a town built of white and gold marble, roofed in red tile. Small fountains babbled in each corner of the plaza and at several intersections, providing drinking water for anyone who wanted it, and a much larger ornamental fountain sprayed upward at the center of the plaza. Smoke and intriguing odors rose from a dozen forges and ovens.

  The two villages were growing toward each other across the intervening valley, and it seemed likely that in time they would merge into a single entity.

  In time, Sterren thought, this might become a real city.

  Semma Castle itself still stood, but its population had dropped drastically. Over the months, as the royal treasury and the castle stores gave out, the nobility had drifted away, fleeing the Empire or, in a few cases, finding honest work. The royal family itself was still sticking it out, but most of the others had left.

  The same thing, Sterren knew, had happened in all the former capitals, the castles and strongholds that had once ruled Ophkar, Ksinallion, Skaia, Thanoria, Enmurinon, Hluroth, Akalla of the Diamond, Zhulura, Ghelua, Ansuon, Furnara, Kalshar, Quonshar, Dherimin, Karminora, Alboa, and Hend.

  So far, Vond had definitely been good for the Small Kingdoms. He had dispossessed a few hundred nobles, but he had enriched thousands of peasants. He had killed a few dozen people in his conquests, but he had probably saved at least as many from starvation.

  And he was doomed.

  Sterren still found it hard to believe that Vond did not realize he was doomed. It was really fairly obvious. After all, all warlocks were doomed. Just finding a new power source would not change that. Sterren thought Vond had had enough hints when he established the northern borders of his empire, but still the warlock did not see it.

  It was not just that he was unwilling to admit it, either. If that were it, he would have cut back on his use of magic, and he hadn’t. He continued to lay roads, erect buildings, manipulate the weather, and at times to light the night sky in sheer celebration of his might.

  Sterren had refrained from commenting, but after all these months, he was finally convinced that Vond deserved better. He deserved a warning, at the very
least—a warning only Sterren could provide.

  And, Sterren promised himself, he would deliver that warning.

  The only catch was to figure out how to convince Vond that he, Sterren, had only recognized the danger now. If Vond knew that Sterren had withheld his certainty for so long he was likely to be very annoyed indeed.

  Sterren did not care to have Vond annoyed with him.

  He was puzzling out an approach when someone behind him cleared a throat.

  He turned, and found a palace servant, a man named Ildirin who had once been a butcher’s assistant in Ksinallion, standing in the balcony door.

  “Your pardon, my lord chancellor,” he said apologetically, “but the Emperor is meeting with the Council and desires your presence.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, my lord,” Ildirin replied.

  Sterren knew better than to argue or hesitate; Vond hated to be kept waiting. “Where?” he asked.

  “In the council chamber.”

  Sterren nodded, stepped past Ildirin into the palace, and headed for the stairs.

  Ildirin followed at a respectful distance.

  The council chamber had not been designed as such; after all, when Vond built his palace he had no idea that an Imperial Council would ever exist. He had intended the room to be an informal audience chamber, where he could meet with his cronies without the full pomp of the main audience hall, but still on a business basis rather than in his personal apartments.

  Save for Sterren, however, who was usually welcome even in Vond’s private quarters, the warlock had no cronies. He had a council, instead, and so the informal audience chamber had become the council chamber.

  The councillors could hardly be considered cronies; none of the seven liked Vond or particularly wanted to see him remain in power. All seven, however, were willing to recognize that the Empire of Vond was a reality, and that it needed governing, and all seven were very good at governing.