by Larry Niven
“I thought it was slavers at first,” he said once, in the Warlock’s hearing as it turned out. “There were no corpses, none anywhere. Slave traders don’t kill if they can help it.
“But why would a troop of slavers leave valuables lying where they were? The opals were all over the street, mixed with hay. I think a jeweler must have been moving them in secret when something smashed his wagon. But why didn’t they pick up the jewels?”
It was the crumbled castle the Warlock remembered three years later, when he heard about Shiskabil. He heard of that one directly, from a magpie that fluttered out of the sky onto his shoulder and whispered, “Warlock?”
And when he had heard, he went.
Shiskabil was a village of stone houses within a stone wall. It must have been abandoned suddenly. Dinners had dried or rotted on their plates; meat had been burnt to ash in ovens. There were no living inhabitants, and no dead. The wall had not been breached. But there were signs of violence everywhere: broken furniture, doors with broken locks or splintered hinges, crusted spears and swords and makeshift clubs, and blood. Dried black blood was everywhere, as if it had rained blood.
Clubfoot’s skin was reddish-brown, his hair straight and black. He was young and thin and earnest. His talent had brought him to Guild apprenticeship from the other side of the world; but he was still a little afraid of the power he commanded through magic. He was not happy in Shiskabil. He limped through the village with shoulders hunched, trying to avoid the places where blood had pooled.
“Weird, isn’t it? But I had a special reason to send for you,” he said. “There’s a dead region outside the wall. I had the idea someone might have used a Warlock’s Wheel there.”
He led the Warlock to a rectangular plot of fertile ground, a foretaste of a world dead to magic. In the center was piled rubble with green plants growing between the stones. The Warlock circled the place, unwilling to step where mana was gone.
“There was magic worked in the village,” said Clubfoot. “I tried a few simple spells. The mana level’s very low. I don’t remember any famous sorcerers from Shiskabil; do you?”
“No.”
“Then whatever happened here was done by magic.” Clubfoot almost whispered the word. Magic could be very evil—as he knew.
They found a zigzag path through the dead borderline, and a faintly live region inside. At a gesture from the Warlock, the crumbled stones stirred feebly, trying to rise.
“So it was somebody’s castle,” said Clubfoot. “I wonder how he got this effect?”
“I thought of something like it once. Say you put a heavy kinetic spell on a smaller Wheel. The Wheel would spin very fast, would use up mana in a very tight area—”
Clubfoot was nodding. “I see it. He could have led it around a track, a close path. It would give him a kind of hedge against magic around a live region.”
“And he left the border open so he could get his tools in and out. He zigzagged the entrance so no spells could get through. Nobody could use farsight on him. I wonder…”
“I wonder what he had to hide?”
“I wonder what happened in Shiskabil,” said the Warlock. And he remembered the dead barrier that hid the Hill Magician’s castle. His leisurely duel with a faceless enemy was twelve years old.
It was twenty-three years old before they found the third village.
Hathzoril was bigger than Shiskabil, and better known. When a shipment of carvings in ivory and gem woods did not arrive, the Warlock heard of it.
The village could not have been abandoned more than a few days when the Warlock arrived. He and Clubfoot found meals half cooked, meals half eaten, broken furniture, weapons that had been taken from their racks, broken doors—
“But no blood. I wonder why?”
Clubfoot was jittery. “Otherwise it’s just the same. The whole population gone in an instant, probably against their will. Ten whole years; no, more. I’d half forgotten…You got here before I did. Did you find a dead area and a crumbled castle?”
“No. I looked.”
The younger magician rubbed his birth-maimed foot—which he could have cured in half an hour, but it would have robbed him of half his powers. “We could be wrong. If it’s him, he’s changed his techniques.”
That night the Warlock dreamed a scrambled dream in pyrotechnic colors. He woke thinking of the Hill Magician.
“Let’s climb some hills,” he told Clubfoot in the morning. “I’ve got to know if the Hill Magician has something to do with these empty villages. We’re looking for a dead spot on top of a hill.”
That mistake almost killed him.
The last hill Clubfoot tried to climb was tumbled, crumbled soil and rock that slid and rolled under his feet. He tried it near sunset, in sheer desperation, for they had run out of hills and patience.
He was still near the base when the Warlock came clambering to join him. “Come down from there!” he laughed. “Nobody would build on this sand heap.”
Clubfoot looked around, and shouted, “Get out of here! You’re older!”
The Warlock rubbed his face and felt the wrinkles. He picked his way back in haste and in care, wanting to hurry, but fearful of breaking fragile bones. He left a trail of fallen silver hair.
Once beyond the mana-poor region, he cackled in falsetto. “My mistake. I know what he did now. Clubfoot, we’ll find the dead spot inside the hill.”
“First we’ll work you a rejuvenation spell.” Clubfoot laid his tools out on a rock. A charcoal block, a silver knife, packets of leaves…While he worked, the Warlock talked.
“That border’s bad. It sucks up mana from inside. He must have to move pretty often. So he raised up a hill like a breaking wave. When the magic ran out the hill just rolled over the castle and covered up everything. He’ll do it again, too.”
“Clever. What do you think happened in Hathzoril Village?”
“We may never know.” The Warlock rubbed new wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Something bad, I think. Something very bad.”
Trolls
Aran was strolling through the merchants’ quarter that afternoon, looking at rugs.
Normally this was a cheerful task. Hanging rugs formed a brightly colored maze through this part of the quarter. As Aran the rug merchant moved through the maze, well-known voices would call his name. Then there would be gossip and canny trading.
He had traded in Rynildissen City for nearly thirty years, first as Lloraginezee’s apprentice, later as his own man. The finest rugs and the cheapest, from all over this continent and nearby islands, came by ship and camel’s back to Rynildissen City. Wholesalers, retailers, and the odd nobleman who wished to furnish a palace would travel to Rynildissen City to buy. Today they glowed in the hot sunlight…but today they only depressed him. Aran was thinking of moving away.
A bald man stepped into view from behind a block of cured sphinx pelts.
Bald as a roc’s egg he was, yet young, and in the prime of muscular good health. He was shirtless like a stevedore, but his pantaloons were of high quality and his walk was pure arrogance. Aran felt he was staring rather rudely. Yet there was something familiar about the man.
He passed Aran without a glance.
Aran glanced back once, and was jolted. The design seemed to leap out at him: a five-sided multicolored tattoo on the man’s back.
Aran called, “Warlock!”
He regretted it the next moment. The Warlock turned on him the look one gives a presumptuous stranger.
The Warlock had not changed at all, except for the loss of his hair. But Aran remembered that thirty years had passed; that he himself was a man of fifty, with the hollows of his face filled out by rich living. He remembered that his greying hair had receded, leaving his widow’s peak as a shock of hair all alone on his forehead. And he remembered, in great detail, the circumstances under which he had met the Warlock.
He had spent a thousand nights plotting vengeance against the Warlock, yet now his only thought w
as to get away. He said, “Your pardon, sir—”
But something else occurred to him, so that he said firmly, “But we have met.”
“Under what circumstance? I do not recall it,” the Warlock said coldly.
Aran’s answer was a measure of the self-confidence that comes with wealth and respect. He said, “I was robbing your cave.”
“Were you!” The Warlock came closer. “Ah, the boy from Atlantis. Have you robbed any magicians lately?”
“I have adopted a somewhat safer way of life,” Aran said equably. “And I do have reason for presuming on our brief acquaintance.”
“Our brief—” The Warlock laughed so that heads turned all over the marketplace. Still laughing, he took Aran’s arm and led him away.
They strolled slowly through the merchants’ quarter, the Warlock leading. “I have to follow a certain path,” he explained. “A project of my own. Well, my boy, what have you been doing for thirty years?”
“Trying to get rid of your glass dagger.”
“Glass dagger?…Oh, yes, I remember. Surely you found time for other hobbies?”
Aran almost struck the Warlock then. But there was something he wanted from the Warlock, and so he held his temper.
“My whole life has been warped by your damned glass dagger,” he said. “I had to circle Hvirin Gap on my way home. When I finally got here I was out of money. No money for passage to Atlantis, and no money to pay for a magician, which meant that I couldn’t get the glass knife removed.
“So I hired out to Lloraginezee the rug merchant as a bodyguard/watchdog. Now I’m the leading rug merchant in Rynildissen City, I’ve got two wives and eight children and a few grandchildren, and I don’t suppose I’ll ever get back to Atlantis.”
They bought wine from a peddler carrying two fat wineskins on his shoulders. They took turns drinking from the great copper goblet the man carried.
The Warlock asked, “Did you ever get rid of the knife?”
“No, and you ought to know it! What kind of spell did you put on that thing? The best magicians in this continent haven’t been able to so much as touch the knife, let alone pull it out. I wouldn’t be a rug merchant if they had.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I’d have earned my passage to Atlantis soon enough, except that every time I heard about a new magician in the vicinity I’d go to him to see if he could take that knife out. Selling rugs was a way to get the money to pay the magicians. Eventually I gave up on the magicians and kept the money. All I’ve accomplished is to spread your reputation in all directions.”
“Thank you,” the Warlock said politely.
Aran did not like the Warlock’s amusement. He decided to end the conversation quickly. “I’m glad we ran into each other,” he said, “because I have a problem that is really in your province. Can you tell me something about a magician named Wavyhill?”
It may be that the Warlock stiffened. “What is it that you want to know?”
“Whether his spells use excessive power.”
The Warlock lifted an interrogatory eyebrow.
“You see, we try to restrict the use of magic in Rynildissen City. The whole nation could suffer if a key region like Rynildissen City went dead to magic. There’d be no way to stop a flood, or a hurricane, or an invasion of barbarians. Do you find something amusing?”
“No, no. But could a glass dagger possibly have anything to do with your conservative attitude?”
“That’s entirely my own business, Warlock. Unless you’d care to read my mind?”
“No, thank you. My apologies.”
“I’d like to point out that more than just the welfare of Rynildissen City is involved. If this region went dead to magic, the harbor mermen would have to move away. They have quite an extensive city of their own, down there beyond the docks. Furthermore, they run most of the docking facilities and the entire fishing industry—”
“Relax. I agree with you completely. You know that,” the magician laughed. “You ought to!”
“Sorry. I preach at the drop of a hat. It’s been ten years since anyone saw a dragon near Rynildissen City. Even further out, they’re warped, changed. When I first came here the dragons had a mercenary’s booth in the city itself! What are you doing?”
The Warlock had handed the empty goblet back to the vendor and was pulling at Aran’s arm. “Come this way, please. Quickly, before I lose the path.”
“Path?”
“I’m following a fogged prescient vision. I could get killed if I lose the path—or if I don’t, for that matter. Now, just what was your problem?”
“That,” said Aran, pointing among the fruit stalls.
The troll was an ape’s head on a human body, covered from head to toe in coarse brown hair. From its size it was probably female, but it had no more breasts than a female ape. It held a wicker basket in one quite human hand. Its bright brown eyes glanced up at Aran’s pointing finger—startlingly human eyes—then dropped to the melon it was considering.
Perhaps the sight should have roused reverence. A troll was ancestral to humanity: Homo habilis, now extinct. But they were too common. Millions of the species had been fossilized in the drylands of Africa. Magicians of a few centuries ago had learned that they could be reconstituted by magic.
“I think you’ve just solved one of my own problems,” the Warlock said quietly. He no longer showed any trace of amusement.
“Wonderful,” Aran said without sincerity. “My own problem is, how much mana are Wavyhill’s trolls using up? The mana level in Rynildissen City was never high to start with. Wavyhill must be using terrifically powerful spells just to keep them walking.” Aran’s fingertips brushed his chest in an unconscious gesture. “I’d hate to leave Rynildissen City, but if magic stops working here I won’t have any choice.”
“I’d have to know the spells involved. Tell me something about Wavyhill, will you? Everything you can remember.”
To most of Rynildissen City the advent of Wavyhill the magician was very welcome.
Once upon a time troll servants had been common. They were terrifically strong. Suffering no pain, they could use hysterical strength for the most mundane tasks. Being inhuman, they could work on official holidays. They needed no sleep. They did not steal.
But Rynildissen City was old, and the mana was running low. For many years no troll had walked in Rynildissen City. At the gate they turned to blowing dust.
Then came Wavyhill with a seemingly endless supply of trolls, which did not disintegrate at the gate. The people paid him high prices in gold and in honors.
“For half a century thieves have worked freely on holidays,” Aran told the Warlock. “Now we’ve got a trollish police force again. Can you blame people for being grateful? They made him a Councilman—over my objections. Which means there’s very little short of murder that Wavyhill can’t do in Rynildissen City.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Why did you say over your objections? Are you on the Council?”
“Yes. I’m the one who rammed through the laws restricting magic in Rynildissen City. And failed to ram through some others, I might add. The trouble is that Wavyhill doesn’t make the trolls in the city. Nobody knows where they come from. If he’s depleting the mana level, he’s doing it somewhere else.”
“Then what’s your problem?”
“Suppose the trolls use up mana just by existing?…I should be asking, do they?”
“I think so,” said the Warlock.
“I knew it. Warlock, will you testify before the Council? Because—”
“No, I won’t.”
“But you’ve got to! I’ll never convince anyone by myself. Wavyhill is the most respected magician around, and he’ll be testifying against me! Besides which, the Council all own trolls themselves. They won’t want to believe they’ve been suckered, and they have been if we’re right. The trolls will collapse as soon as they’ve lowered the mana level enough.”
At that point Aran ran down, for h
e had seen with what stony patience the Warlock was waiting for him to finish.
The Warlock waited three seconds longer, using silence as an exclamation point. Then he said, “It’s gone beyond that. Talking to the Council would be like shouting obscenities at a forest fire. I could get results that way. You couldn’t.”
“Is he that dangerous?”
“I think so.”
Aran wondered if he was being had. But the Warlock’s face was so grave…and Aran had seen that face in too many nightmares. What am I doing here? he wondered. I had a technical question about trolls. So I asked a magician…and now…
“Keep talking. I need to know more about Wavyhill. And walk faster,” said the Warlock. “How long has he been here?”
“Wavyhill came to Rynildissen City seven years ago. Nobody knows where he came from; he doesn’t have any particular accent. His palace sits on a hill that looks like it’s about to fall over. What are you nodding at?”
“I know that hill. Keep talking.”
“We don’t see him often. He comes with a troupe of trolls, to sell them; or he comes to vote with the Council on important matters. He’s short and dark—”
“That could be a seeming. Never mind, describe him anyway. I’ve never seen him.”
“Short and dark, with a pointed nose and a pointed chin and very curly dark hair. He wears a dark robe of some soft material, a tall pointed hat, and sandals, and he carries a sword.”
“Does he!” The Warlock laughed out loud.
“What’s the joke? I carry a sword myself sometimes.—Oh, that’s right, magicians have a thing about swordsmen.”
“That’s not why I laughed. It’s a trade joke. A sword can be a symbol of masculine virility.”
“Oh?”
“You see the point, don’t you? A sorcerer doesn’t need a sword. He knows more powerful protections. When a sorcerer takes to carrying a sword, it’s pretty plain he’s using it as a cure for impotence.”
“And it works?”
“Of course it works. It’s straight one-for-one similarity magic, isn’t it? But you’ve got to take the sword to bed with you!” laughed the Warlock. But his eyes found a troll servant, and his laughter slipped oddly.