The Unwilling Warlord

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “All right,” he said, “how many groups do we have here? Please, divide yourselves up, spread out, so I can see what the situation is.”

  The petitioners milled about in confusion; clearly, several had not understood his Ethsharitic.

  He repeated the instructions as best he could in Semmat, and waited while the group sorted itself out into smaller groups.

  There were five petitions, it appeared—one group of four, a group of three, two pairs, and a single.

  “Who speaks Ethsharitic?” Sterren asked.

  One hand went up in each group; the single, unfortunately, just looked blank. Sterren asked him in Semmat, “Do you speak Semmat?”

  He nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  That, Sterren thought, would have to do.

  He decided to start with the largest group and work down; it seemed fairest to keep the fewest possible waiting.

  “All right,” he said, pointing, “you four, come on in.”

  The Ethsharitic-speaking spokesman for the foursome led his party into the audience chamber, down the rich red carpet as the doors swung shut behind them, to stand before the dais. Sterren watched them closely, to see if they seemed aware that anything was out of the ordinary.

  They did not. Apparently, either nobody had told them that the Great Vond had no throne and always conducted business floating in the air, or they had dismissed such tales as exaggerations.

  They went down on their knees before the emperor and bowed deeply.

  “Rise,” Vond said.

  His unenhanced voice seemed horribly weak to Sterren, a thin little sound that was almost lost in the great stone chamber.

  The petitioners did not seem to notice anything odd. They rose.

  Their spokesman took a cautious step forward and waited.

  “Speak,” Vond said.

  “Your Imperial Majesty,” the petitioner said, “we have come here as representatives for many, many of your subjects who grow peaches. This year, thanks to the fine weather you have given us, we have a very large, very fine crop—and it is all ripening at once, so fast that we do not have time to harvest it. We...” He hesitated, glanced at Sterren, who looked encouraging, and then continued, “We have seen you light the sky at night. Could you do this again? If you could light the sky above our trees, we could harvest by night as well as by day, and we would not leave fruit to ripen and rot on the tree before we can get to it. I ... we understand that you have other concerns, but...”

  “No,” Vond said flatly, interrupting the petitioner.

  The spokesman blinked. “No?” he said. “But your Majesty...”

  “No, I said!”

  “May I ask why...”

  “No!” Vond bellowed, rising from the throne—not by magic, but standing naturally upon his own feet. His voice echoed from the walls.

  A breeze stirred the warlock’s robes, in a closed room where no natural breeze could reach. Vond felt it, and looked down at the swaying fabric of his sleeve in horror.

  He turned to Sterren and said, “Get them out of here.”

  Then he turned and ran from the room.

  The petitioners stared after him in astonishment.

  Sterren stepped forward and told them, “The Great Vond is ill. He had hoped that he would be able to hear petitions regardless, but it appears that the gods would have it otherwise.” He hesitated, and continued, “And I’m afraid that’s why he refused your petition; while his illness persists, his magic is somewhat limited, and to light the sky as you ask would be too great a strain upon his health.”

  The petitioners looked at him uncertainly as he spoke, and he saw fear appear on the spokesman’s face. Sterren thought he understood that; after all, when the king is sick, the kingdom is in danger. That old proverb would hold true all the more for an emperor, and a young emperor of a young and still-unsteady empire at that.

  Worst of all, Vond was an emperor without an heir.

  “Don’t worry,” Sterren said soothingly. “It’s not that serious.”

  He hoped the lie would not be obvious.

  “What can we do?” the spokesman asked.

  “Go home, harvest your peaches as best you can, and don’t worry unduly. If you know the names of any gods, you might pray to them on the emperor’s behalf, and I’m sure healing charms wouldn’t hurt.” He took the spokesman’s arm and led the party back down the hall to the door.

  Once again, a single rap opened the doors, and Sterren escorted the little party out into the hall. There he raised his voice and called, “The Great Vond is ill, and all audiences for today are canceled!” He repeated it in Semmat. “If you wish to, you may stay in the area and check with the guards daily, and present your petitions when the Great Vond has recovered, or you may put them in writing, and give them to any guard or servant with instructions that they be delivered to Chancellor Sterren, who will see that they are read by the Great Vond as soon as his health permits. If you cannot write, there are scribes for hire in the village.”

  The little crowd milled about again, muttering uneasily.

  “That is all!” Sterren announced firmly. He turned to the four servants at the doors and dismissed them.

  That done, he turned and headed for the stairs. He kept his pace slow and dignified until he knew he was out of sight of the petitioners, and then broke into a trot, heading directly for Vond’s bedchamber.

  As he had expected, he found Vond there, sitting in a chair and staring at the gaping hole, edged with bits of glass and leading, that had once been the window overlooking the courtyard gardens.

  “I can’t even fix the window,” Vond said without preamble as Sterren entered.

  “I’ll have the servants take care of it immediately,” Sterren said.

  “Sterren,” Vond wailed, “I can’t even fix the damned window! I can’t do anything! I can’t afford to lose my temper; I was struggling as hard as I could to shut out the magic down there, but you heard my voice, you felt the wind. How can I live without magic?”

  “I didn’t feel any wind,” Sterren said truthfully. “I saw your clothes move, so I knew what happened, but it didn’t reach me. You had it almost under control. It will take practice, that’s all. Most people live their whole lives without magic. You ask how you can live without it; ask how long you can live with it.”

  Vond turned and glared at him. “You did this to me,” he said bitterly.

  “You did it to yourself,” Sterren retorted. “And whoever did it, it’s done now, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, gods!” Vond burst out, throwing himself from the chair to the bed. “And the nightmares have already begun!”

  “You’ve only had one so far,” Sterren pointed out, “and that was right after working the mightiest magic any warlock has ever performed. Perhaps, if you use no more magic, you won’t have any more nightmares.”

  “Oh, get out of here!” Vond shouted.

  Sterren retreated to the door. “I’ll send the servants to fix the window,” he said as he left.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  There were no nightmares that night, or the next, and Vond grew more optimistic. He stayed sequestered in his apartments, but spoke of venturing forth again, and taking up his role as emperor, when he had adjusted to using no magic.

  Even the rain on the second day did not seriously dampen his spirits. If anything, this sign that he was no longer controlling the weather seemed to cheer the warlock.

  On the third night his screams woke the entire palace. Sterren took the stairs three steps at a time on his way to Vond’s chamber.

  Two guards and Vond’s valet were already there, staring in shocked silence as Vond, hanging a foot off the floor, beat on the north wall of the room with his fists.

  “Your Majesty,” Sterren called, “remember, use your feet!”

  Vond looked at him unseeingly, and then seemed to emerge from a daze. He looked down, and then dropped to the floor and fell to his knees.

  He knelt there, shaking.
Sterren crossed to him and put an arm around his shoulder.

  “You,” he said, pointing to one guard, “go get brandy. And you, go get an herbalist.” They hurried away.

  The valet asked, “Is there anything ...?”

  “Go find the theurgist, Agor,” Sterren said.

  The valet vanished, leaving Sterren alone with the terrified warlock.

  He looked up at the wall, where a small smear of red showed that Vond had scraped his hand on the rough edge of a stone.

  “Why were you hitting the wall?” Sterren asked.

  “I don’t know,” Vond replied. “Was I?” He looked up, saw the streak of blood, then looked down at his injured hand, puzzled.

  “Was it the nightmares?” Sterren asked.

  Vond almost growled. “Of course it was, idiot!” He looked up at the blood again, and asked, “Was I flying?”

  “Yes,” Sterren said.

  “I used magic, then. No matter how careful I am, the nightmares can make me use magic. It’s not fair!”

  “No,” Sterren agreed, “it’s not fair.”

  The guard returned with the brandy, and Sterren helped steady the glass as Vond drank.

  When the warlock had caught his breath again, he asked, “Did I say anything?”

  “No,” Sterren told him, “I don’t think so.”

  The guard cleared his throat.

  Sterren glanced at him. “Was there something before I got here?” he asked.

  “He was crying, my lord,” the soldier said, “and saying something about needing to go somewhere. I couldn’t make out all of it.”

  Then the herbalist arrived.

  Half an hour later Vond was in bed again, feeling the effects of a sleeping potion the herbalist had brewed, and the little crowd of concerned subjects was breaking up, drifting out of the imperial bedchamber one by one.

  Sterren departed and headed back up for his own room.

  The incident had shaken his nerves. It had been easy enough to say that Vond had to go, but to watch him slowly being destroyed by the Calling was not easy at all.

  Sterren was not sure he could take it.

  Perhaps, he thought, it was time to go home to Ethshar. Vond could not follow him. The old Semman nobility was scattered and powerless, save for Kalira and Algarven, and they would have no particular reason to want him back.

  But no, he told himself, that was cowardice. Not that he was particularly brave, but it was worse than ordinary cowardice. He had created the whole situation; to run away and leave it for others to clean up the mess was despicable. It went beyond cowardice, and into treachery.

  It would be cheating, and he was an honest gambler. He did not cheat. He did not welsh.

  He would stay, and watch what he had wrought.

  He almost reconsidered two nights later, when another nightmare sent Vond blazing into the sky like a comet. He awoke and fell to earth a mile north of the palace; Sterren and a dozen guards marched out to fetch him back.

  Chapter Forty

  On the twenty-fourth of Leafcolor, 5221, Sterren awoke suddenly and was startled to see sunlight pouring in his bedroom window. It had been two sixnights since he had slept the night through without being awakened by another of Vond’s Calling nightmares.

  He sat up, and realized that he was not alone in the room, that he had been awakened. He blinked, and recognized the man who had awakened him as Vond’s valet.

  “What’s happened?” he asked.

  “He’s gone,” the valet said.

  Sterren wasted no time with further questions; he rose and followed the servant at a trot through the palace passages, back to the warlock’s bedchamber.

  The bed was empty, and not particularly disturbed; the coverlet was thrown back on one side, as if Vond had gotten up for a moment, perhaps to use the chamberpot, and had not yet returned.

  The often-repaired window to the courtyard was open.

  Vond was gone.

  It was over; whatever it was that lurked in the hills of Aldagmor had taken another warlock.

  Sterren almost wanted to laugh with relief, but instead he found himself weeping.

  When he had regained control of himself, he asked the valet, “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know, my lord; I awoke an hour or so after dawn, I think, and came in and found it like this, and went straight to fetch you.”

  Sterren nodded. “All right,” he said. “You go find whoever takes care of such matters, and see to it that the Imperial Council is in the council chamber an hour from now. I need to speak to them.”

  The valet hesitated. “What do I do here?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Sterren said. “Leave it just the way it is. The Great Vond might come back.”

  With a shiver, Sterren realized that might even be true. Nobody knew what happened to warlocks who gave in to the Calling. None had ever returned.

  But Vond had been more powerful than any other warlock who ever lived, and warlocks had only existed, and therefore only been vanishing, for twenty years. Nobody really knew whether Vond might come back.

  But quite frankly, Sterren doubted it.

  Back in his room he had someone fetch him a tray of breakfast pastry, which he ate while bathing. When he was washed, fed, and dry, he took his time in dressing in his best tunic and breeches, combing his hair, brushing out his freshly-grown mustache—he was almost, he thought as he looked at the mirror, ready to grow a proper beard.

  When he was thoroughly satisfied with his appearance, he headed for the council chamber.

  All seven councillors were there waiting for him; Lady Kalira, anticipating his arrival, was at the foot of the table, leaving room for him at the head. He marched in and took his place.

  “The Great Vond,” he announced, “has moved on to a higher plane of existence.”

  “You mean he’s dead?” Prince Ferral asked.

  “No,” Sterren said. “Or at least, I don’t think so.”

  “You’ll have to explain that,” Algarven remarked.

  Sterren did, not concerning himself with the truth.

  Warlocks, he explained, did not die the way ordinary people did. They vanished, transmogrified into pure magic. The nightmares and other ills that the Great Vond had been suffering were his mortal body’s attempts to prevent this ascension.

  “He’s gone, though?” Prince Ferral demanded.

  “He’s gone,” Sterren admitted, “but we don’t know if it’s permanent. It’s only twenty years since warlockry was first discovered, and the Great Vond was the most powerful warlock the World has yet seen. We really don’t know whether he might return or not.”

  The councillors watched Sterren carefully, and he looked them over in return, trying to judge how many of them believed him.

  He couldn’t tell. After all, these were all expert politicians. They could hide their opinions quite effectively.

  Then Lady Kalira asked the really important question, the one that Sterren had called this meeting to answer.

  “What now?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” Sterren admitted.

  “Well, what do you think?” Algarven asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Sterren said. “We could really just go on the way we have been. After all, nobody outside the palace has seen Vond in almost two months now. Nobody has to know that anything has changed.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Algarven said. “I don’t think we can keep it secret forever. The servants will know, and they’ll talk.”

  The others nodded in agreement.

  “We could take Lord Sterren’s approach,” Lady Kalira suggested, “and say that he’s gone, but he’ll be back.”

  “Do we want to go on as we have?” asked Lady Arris of Ksinallion. “We could put everything back the way it was, couldn’t we?”

  “Could we?” Algarven said. “What would we do with this palace?”

  Everyone began talking, and Sterren lost track of who was saying what.

  �
��Why should we go back to stupid little border wars?”

  “Why break up the strongest nation in the Small Kingdoms?”

  “What if the peasants don’t want to switch back?”

  “What about all the roads he built?”

  “We could be beheaded for treason!”

  “How would we divide up the imperial treasury?”

  It was Lady Kalira who settled the matter by asking, “Do you really want someone like King Phenvel back on the throne?”

  That settled it; the Empire of Vond would continue.

  “What about a new emperor?” Prince Ferral asked.

  “Who?” Algarven asked in reply.

  “If we pick one of the deposed kings, we’ll have rebellions in the other provinces,” Lady Kalira pointed out.

  “What about Lord Sterren?” Lady Arris asked.

  Sterren thought he sensed a current of approval, and he blocked it quickly. He had thought this all through once before, when Vond had appointed him to handle the details of government.

  “No,” he said, “I’m not interested. I didn’t want to be warlord of Semma, I didn’t want to be Vond’s chancellor, and I certainly don’t want to be your emperor!”

  Lady Kalira started to speak, and Sterren cut her off.

  “You don’t need an emperor,” he said. “The Hegemony hasn’t got an emperor. Sardiron hasn’t got an emperor. They get along just fine.”

  “What do they have?” Prince Ferral asked.

  “The Hegemony has a triumvirate—three overlords who form a sort of council. And Sardiron has a council of barons. We have a council here; we don’t need an emperor.”

  “You’re suggesting, then, that the Imperial Council be the highest authority?” Algarven asked.

  Sterren nodded. “Exactly,” he said.

  “And what,” Lady Kalira asked, “of our chancellor? What will you do?”

  “Retire, if you’ll let me,” Sterren said. “I’d like to settle down quietly, find some sort of honest work—though I certainly wouldn’t mind if you want to vote me a pension, or maybe even an appointment of some sort.”

  Lady Kalira rose and glanced at the other councillors. “I think,” she said, “that we need to discuss this by ourselves.”