They had, indeed, come to the top of the yellow fog, but they had been unable to see over it or through it; all they had seen was a seemingly-infinite expanse of golden haze, stretching on before them forever, while behind them all the Small Kingdoms were laid out, the central mountain-chain curving down between the rich green coastal plain and the paler, drier eastern lands. The ocean appeared on the western horizon, the burning sands of the great deserts on the eastern, and still they saw nothing to the south but golden haze.
When they could see the haze on the eastern horizon, beyond the desert, wrapping around the southeastern corner of the World, even Vond gave up.
Sterren had been ready to give up long before; unlike Vond, he had no supernatural power source to warm him or gather in air. Frost had formed on his face and hands and he was having serious trouble breathing by the time Vond finally began descending.
When they had once again reached the warm, thick air of the everyday world, the warlock remarked, “I’d never gone that high before. It’s quite something, isn’t it?”
Sterren’s frozen muscles had not yet thawed; he could not answer.
They landed, and Vond stepped forward to the edge while Sterren waited atop a small dune.
The edge looked like an ordinary cliff; it was not particularly straight or even, but just a place where the dunes ended in a drop-off.
What made it unique was that it extended as far as Sterren could see in both directions, and that he could see nothing at all on the other side except that infinite golden mist.
Vond stood atop that cliff, looking down.
“I can’t see anything,” he called back, disappointed. “Just that damned haze.”
Sterren stepped cautiously forward and peered over, still several feet back.
Like Vond, he could see nothing but the yellow mist.
“Wait here,” the warlock said. He rose into the air and drifted forward.
Almost immediately, he stopped and flew back. He turned to Sterren and said, amazed, “There’s no air! I couldn’t breathe. And that yellow stuff smells horrible, and it burns your throat. And I still couldn’t see any bottom. The mist just goes on forever!”
Sterren looked up and down.
“What holds it back, though? Why does the mist stay on that side, and the air on this side?”
Vond looked up and down, as Sterren had, and then shrugged. “It must be magic,” he said. “Wizardry, maybe.”
Sterren shrugged. “I never saw magic do anything this big.”
“The gods must have done it,” Vond said, in sudden enlightenment. “The tales say they brought the World out of chaos, don’t they? That yellow stuff must be chaos!”
That did not sound right to Sterren. The story he had heard was that the World had been a bit that was left over, unnoticed, when the universe split into Heaven and Hell. The gods had found it later, and helped shape it, but they hadn’t created it out of chaos.
Besides, why would chaos be yellow? Why would it be any color at all?
He didn’t think that there were any explanations for the golden mist; it was just there, and they would have to accept it.
“Now what?” he asked.
Vond looked about, considering. “I don’t think I want to fool around with that stuff,” he said. “If it is chaos, it’s dangerous.”
Sterren was not about to argue with that; he said nothing.
“What if I were to fold back the edge, here? That might even be useful; if the magic that holds that stuff back ever fails, a wall here would be a good second line of defense.”
Again, Sterren was not inclined to argue, although he thought Vond was talking nonsense. He could not help balking at the immensity of the idea, however.
“Fold it back?” he said, his voice cracking.
“Sure!” Vond said. “I’ll need to see how thick it is, though.”
“How thick what is?”
“The World, of course!” He bent over, and Sterren watched as a narrow hole appeared in the sand before him.
The loose sand did not slide down to fill it in. Vond stared down into it for several minutes, and Sterren settled down to sit on a dune and watch.
At last, Vond straightened up. “I can’t find the bottom,” he said. “I went down well over a mile, I’m sure.” He shrugged. “Well, I’ll just peel back the top layer, then, and fold that up.” He looked about, calculating, and his gaze fell on Sterren.
“Oh,” he said, “I’d better get you out of here. This may be messy.”
“All right,” Sterren said, greatly relieved but trying not to show it.
In an instant, he was airborne again, flying at a fantastic speed back toward Semma, moving so fast that once again, as he had at high altitude, he had trouble breathing.
Breathless moments later, he landed, stumbling, on a village street, in the shadow of the walls of Semma Castle.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Even over the intervening distance, low rumblings occasionally reached the village. From his perch in the castle tower Sterren could see huge chunks of sand and rock shifting in the distance, but he could make out no details.
After dark the noise continued, and an eerie orange glow lit the southern skies. The glow seemed to wax and wane erratically, and occasional sparkles of red or pale blue light rippled across it.
Sterren was very glad he hadn’t used another of his ideas and suggested that Vond go fetch the lesser moon out of the sky; folding back the edge of the World was quite terrifying enough.
By noon on the eleventh of Harvest the job was complete; where once the edge of the World had been marked by a distant line of gold, now it was marked by a distant line of black that Sterren assumed to be stone, and a tiny black dot was approaching that could only be Vond, returning.
Sterren decided that the tower of Semma Castle was not where he wanted Vond to find him; he headed for the stairs.
He passed Shirrin in the sixth-floor hallway, and almost stopped to talk to her. She stared at him for a moment while he hesitated, then turned and ran, and he continued down the stairs.
When he got back to the Imperial Palace Vond was already there, sitting on air in the audience chamber with the great red doors opened wide.
Sterren paused in the entryway, unsure whether to speak to the warlock, or to slip upstairs unnoticed. Vond settled the matter by calling, “Oh, there you are, Sterren!”
Sterren strolled into the audience chamber, trying to look casual. “How did it go?” he asked.
“Oh, well enough,” Vond said, smiling. “The sand wouldn’t hold together, of course, so I pulled up a sheet of bedrock. It’s about fifty feet thick and fifty yards high, and only the gods know how long.” He stretched, and added, “It felt wonderful, using all that power!”
Sterren smiled back, hoping the warlock would not see how false the smile was. “I could see the difference from the tower,” he said.
Vond nodded. “It doesn’t look like much from this distance, though.”
“True enough, but it can be seen, and when people realize what it is, think how impressed they’ll be. Their emperor has turned up the edge of the World itself! The concept is more powerful than the appearance on this one.”
Vond nodded. “But I’ll want to do something flashy next time, something everybody will see. You think about what it might be, Sterren; I like your ideas.” He paused, and frowned. “Right now, though, I think I might take a nap. I didn’t sleep at all last night, while I was working, and my head is buzzing, as if the walls themselves were talking to me.” He waved an arm about vaguely.
Sterren nodded, and watched silently as Vond drifted off toward his private chamber.
Vond still did not realize what was happening, Sterren thought. He wondered how long it would take, and when Vond would catch on.
He strolled aimlessly out of the audience chamber into the entrance hall, where the rosewood door of the council chamber caught his eye. He crossed to it, hesitated, and then opened the door
and peered in.
The chamber was empty. All sign of Ildirin’s sudden demise had been scrubbed away.
Sterren wondered how the other servants had received word of Ildirin’s death. Who had told them, and what had they been told? How many had decided to leave?
He closed the door, and thought for a moment.
The weather was beautiful, of course, as it always was in Vond’s empire—but that might not last. He decided to enjoy it while he could. The courtyard held a magnificent flower garden.
He was sitting on an iron bench, feeling the sunlight warm on his face and letting the scent of roses fill his nostrils, when Vond screamed.
The scream came not just from the warlock’s throat, but from the air around him, from the palace walls, and from the stone of the earth itself; everything vibrated in rhythm. The stones groaned, so deeply that the sound was more felt than heard, while the air shrieked and even the leaves of the garden whistled piercingly.
The scream had no words; it was shapeless terror given voice.
The echoes were still fading, the air still humming, when the window of Vond’s bedchamber exploded outward into the garden, spraying shattered glass in every direction; Sterren ducked and covered his head with his arms as shards rattled down on all sides.
When the last tinkling fragment had settled he looked up and saw Vond hanging in the air above him. The warlock wore only a white tunic, and his face was almost equally white. His eyes were wide and staring, his hands trembling.
“Sterren!” he called. “Sterren!”
Sterren said quietly, “I’m here.”
Vond heard him, and looked down. He plummeted from the sky, and landed roughly on the graveled path, falling to his knees and only catching himself from falling flat on his face with one outstretched hand.
He looked up at Sterren, and said, “The nightmares, Sterren, they’re back!”
Sterren nodded. “I thought so,” he said.
Vond’s expression changed suddenly. Sterren’s calm cut through his fear and released anger and uncertainty. “You thought so?” the warlock demanded.
Sterren blinked and said nothing.
Vond rose to his feet, using warlockry rather than hands and legs. “Just what did you think? I had a nightmare—how would you know anything about that?”
Sterren hesitated, trying to phrase an answer, and Vond continued, “It was just a nightmare! It wasn’t ... wasn’t that. It couldn’t have been. It was just a nightmare, my mind playing tricks on me.”
“No,” Sterren said, shaking his head and marvelling that even now, Vond could not accept what was happening.
“It was an ordinary nightmare,” Vond insisted. “It must have been! That thing in Aldagmor is still out of range. It has to be! I haven’t been using it! I’ve been getting power from Lumeth!”
“No,” Sterren repeated. He was horribly aware that Vond was on the verge of complete panic, and could lash out wildly at any time and strike him dead instantly. “No, it almost certainly does come from Aldagmor.”
“It can’t,” Vond insisted.
“Of course it can!” Sterren answered, annoyed at Vond’s stubborn refusal to understand.
“But how?” Vond insisted. “I’m out of range here!”
Sterren shook his head. “Nowhere is really out of range; you know that. When you first came here, before you learned to use the Lumeth source, you could still draw on Aldagmor. Not much, but a little. Don’t you remember? You couldn’t fly, but you could stop a man’s heart.”
“But that’s apprentice work! Apprentices don’t get the nightmares!”
“You’re no apprentice any more. Don’t you see? You’ve been drawing so much power from Lumeth, you’ve become so powerful, so receptive to warlockry, that the Aldagmor source can reach you. Receptivity isn’t that selective. After all, your receptivity to Aldagmor was what let you use Lumeth in the first place. They’re the same thing; the more sensitive you are to one, the more sensitive you are to both. The Lumeth source is closer, so you can draw far more power from it, but you still hear the Aldagmor source, too.”
“But I don’t!”
“You do. You told me so yourself. You couldn’t enter Lumeth of the Towers, and you’ve been complaining for days about whisperings and buzzings in your head; didn’t you realize what they were?”
Vond paused, his expression shocked.
“No,” he said at last, “I didn’t. But they ... you’re right, I was hearing Aldagmor. I wasn’t listening, since I had Lumeth, but I was hearing it. Why listen for a whisper when you can use a shout?” He focused on Sterren again.
“You knew!” he said accusingly. “You knew this was coming!”
Sterren did not dare to reply.
“Why didn’t you warn me? I...” Realization dawned. “Gods, you encouraged me!” Vond exclaimed. “You—it was your idea to fold up the edge of the World!” Fury seethed in Vond’s eyes, and Sterren expected to die then.
He didn’t.
“Why didn’t you warn me?” Vond screamed.
“I was going to,” Sterren answered, truthfully. “Really, I was. But then you killed Ildirin, and hardly even noticed, and I ... I thought you were becoming too dangerous. Besides...” He took a deep breath, and continued, “Besides, would you have believed me?”
Vond’s face, though still pale, was calm as he forced himself to consider this question. He sat down on the bench beside Sterren.
“No,” he admitted at last. “No, I wouldn’t have.”
“Besides,” Sterren said, “I had no idea how much longer you had, how much power you would have to use before ... before this.”
Vond nodded. “No other warlock ever came close to the power I had,” he said wistfully. Sterren noted his use of the past tense. He had already resigned himself to the situation.
“So,” Vond said, “I’m back where I was when you found me in Shiphaven Market, back in Ethshar—I’ve had my first nightmare, passed the brink. I need to either get farther from Aldagmor, or to stop using my magic and live with the nightmares, or else I’ll hear the Calling and ... and do whatever the Calling makes one do.”
Sterren nodded.
“I can’t get any farther away, can I?”
“We’re not at the edge of the World,” Sterren pointed out. “Not quite.”
“But from here to the corner there’s nothing but sand and grass and desert. It’s not worth it. I can’t even build anything to live in; it would use too much power.”
“You could use your hands,” Sterren suggested.
Vond snorted derisively. “I don’t know how,” he said.
“You could just stay here, go on as you have, and go out in a blaze of glory. After all, the Calling isn’t death, is it? It might not be so bad.”
“No,” Vond said flatly. “I don’t know what it is, but anything that sends those nightmares ... No. I escaped it once, and that just makes it worse now.” He shook himself, and said with sudden resolution, “I’ll give up magic. I don’t need it now; I’m an emperor. I can live as I please without it!”
Sterren nodded. “Of course,” he said.
But he knew Vond could never do it. After using warlockry in such prodigious amounts for months, using it for his whims for years, could Vond really give it up?
Sterren did not believe it for a minute.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Vond walked into the audience chamber, climbed the dais, and settled uneasily onto the borrowed throne. He looked down at Sterren.
“How do I look?” he asked.
“Fine,” Sterren said reassuringly.
“It’s not very comfortable,” the warlock said, shifting slightly and looking down at the throne. “And it doesn’t really go with this room.”
“Phenvel’s bigger than you are, and he leaned back more,” Sterren pointed out. “As for the looks, maybe we can drape something over it later.”
Vond nodded. “What did the servants say when you told them to fetch it?”
“I used some of the slaves you bought from Akalla, and they didn’t say anything. It’s not their place to question direct orders.”
The warlock nodded again. “That’s good,” he said, in a distracted way.
After a moment of uncomfortable silence, during which Vond tried to find a more comfortable position and Sterren simply stood and waited, Vond asked, “What do you think they thought at the castle? Did anybody object?”
Sterren shook his head. “I sent half a dozen of my guards along. Nobody objected. They may be wondering about it, but they can’t do anything. You’re the warlock emperor, remember—you’re all-powerful. Nobody knows anything’s changed except the two of us.”
Vond smiled, a twisted and bitter expression. “They know. Half of Semma must have heard my scream.”
“They don’t know,” Sterren insisted. “They don’t know why you screamed. They don’t know anything about warlockry. Nobody in the entire empire knows anything about warlockry except you, me, and maybe a few traders and expatriates from the north.”
“They’ll guess, when they see me sitting in this thing.”
“They won’t.”
Vond shook his head, but stopped arguing.
“Should I open the doors, now?” Sterren asked.
Vond waved a hand unhappily. “Go ahead,” he said.
Sterren marched down the length of the audience hall to the great red doors and rapped once on an enameled panel.
The doors swung in, propelled by two palace servants apiece—another reminder of Vond’s unhappy condition, since he had always moved them magically before.
In the hallway beyond waited a dozen or so petitioners. These were the ones who had been sent on by the Imperial Council or various servants and officials as being outside the council’s purview, with valid reasons to see the Great Vond himself.
There was no bailiff, usher, or doorkeeper to manage the presentations; Vond had always taken care of that himself, using his magically-enhanced voice to direct people. As Sterren looked over the uneasy little knot of people he thought to himself that a great many things would have to change if the empire was to run smoothly.
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