The Time of the Warlock

by Larry Niven

  Mirandee toiled up the line. There was nothing Orolandes could do from up here except hurt for her, fear for her. The slope wouldn’t kill her if she slipped, but it would remove skin and the flesh beneath, and she might break a leg at the end…

  But she arrived intact, panting. She said no word to Orolandes. She spilled the pack he had carried up. She selected a chain of tiny silver links and arranged it in a circle. She drew symbols with a piece of red chalk. She looked up.

  “Give me your sword,” she said.

  Orolandes didn’t move. “What’s it all about?”

  “I don’t think you want to know.”

  “Tell me, love.”

  She sagged. “Necromancy. Magical power derived from death, from murder. We need enough power to waken a half-dead god. We’re going to get it by murdering the World-Worm.”

  “Oh. More death. Isn’t there any other way?”

  “I tried to think of one. Don’t you believe me?”

  “Yes, of course. Of course I believe you.”

  “Curse it, Orolandes, the World-Worm is dead now. The land has shifted and broken its back in places; it’s not even the shape of a snake any more. The wind has worn it away, scales and skin and flesh. If we revived it completely, right now, it would die almost immediately. It’s dead, but it doesn’t know it yet, and we can take advantage of that. Give me your sword.”

  He did.

  “Stand well back.” she said, and turned to her work.

  The song she sang was unpleasant, grating. Orolandes felt numbness in his toes and fingers and a black depression creeping into his soul. He watched as the dusty stone within the ring of silver turned dusty pink.

  Mirandee raised the sword, holding the hilt tightly in both hands. She brought it down hard. Still singing, she pounded on the hilt with a rock until the blade was entirely sheathed.

  The mountain shuddered. Orolandes flattened, gripping rock, ready for the next quake. Far back along the mountain chain to the south, he saw motion and churning dust.

  The mountain shuddered and spilled Clubfoot’s little pile of stones. The Warlock cursed in his mind, but he started chanting immediately. Let my enemy’s heart be mine, let my enemy’s strength be mine—Wavyhill sang the counterpoint next to the Warlock’s ear, while Clubfoot worked at moving rocks.

  It was hard work, and Clubfoot was in haste. Without the ladder of stones, they could not aim their spells into the cavern. Sweat ran down his cheeks and his neck, and he hurled his cloak from him and kept working. Poor Clubfoot, he couldn’t even curse. The Warlock sang on and watched the rock pile grow.

  High enough. Clubfoot mumbled over a dry branch until it blazed, hurled it through the hole and went up the rocks after it. The Warlock followed more slowly, accepting Clubfoot’s assistance. He could feel the power in him now. The World-Worm’s life had fed him.

  The last god seemed to move in the firelight; but it was illusion. Its marble arms gripped the World-Worm’s tooth as tightly as ever.

  Wake and see the world…They sang the spell for reviving the dead. Wavyhill’s voice quavered and shifted. Wavyhill was frightened, and rightly. This could cost him his own not-quite-life. The Warlock could feel the mana leaving him.

  In the middle of the chant his voice left him. He managed to finish the phrase, then signaled Clubfoot with a very ancient gesture, a finger across his throat. Clubfoot moved in smoothly. Wavyhill sang on, in an echoless voice that did not pause for breath.

  The tree limb had almost burned out. The statue’s eyes picked up the firelight like cat’s-eye emeralds. The Warlock made his exaggerated passes, and worried. Let your heart beat, let your blood flow…Would a spell worked to revive men revive a god?

  The song ended.

  The marble statue did not move.

  At last Clubfoot sighed and turned from the black opening. He stumbled down the ladder of stones. The Warlock followed. He was exhausted. The soreness in his throat felt permanent.

  “I feel rotten,” said Orolandes. Shoals of shifting corpses floated past his memory. He sat slumped with his chin on his knees. He could not think of a reason ever to move again. “We killed the World-Worm. How could anything be worth that?”

  “It’s the spell,” Mirandee said. “I feel rotten too. Live with it.”

  “I’m glad I’m not a magician.”

  “No, you don’t have what it takes.”

  “What does it take?”

  Her black hair was a curtain around her, rendering her anonymous. “It takes another kind of courage. You know what I can do, given the power. Cause solid rock to flow like soft clay in invisible hands. Walk on clouds. Read minds, or take them over, or build illusions more real than reality. Kill with a gesture: one moment a hale and dangerous man, the next a mass of meat already decomposing. I can wake the dead to ask them questions. All those things, and other things I know how to do: they make a hash of what a mundane would call common sense. What scares the wits out of the mundanes is knowing how fragile our reality is. Not many can take that.” She shifted a little, but the tent of hair still hid her. “Swordsman, I think we made a mistake, getting so involved with each other.”

  He nodded. In retrospect it seemed almost ridiculous, how dependent he had been on this woman. “It’s no basis for a lifelong love affair, is it? I’m glad you said it first.”

  When she said nothing, he added, “You read my mind by accident. You must know a spell to break you loose.”

  “I do.”

  The sun was warm and bright, and here they sat on the biggest corpse in the world. He had felt so good this morning. Where had it gone?

  The witch-woman said, “You’re around thirty, aren’t you? A child, no more. I’m over seventy. The boy and the old lady, the witch and the swordsman. They don’t go,” she said sadly. “That’s not to say we should give up sex. That was good.”

  “You pulled me out of a bad period. I guess you know I’m grateful.”

  “You’re just not in love any more. Nor am I.”

  “Right.”

  Mirandee seemed to drift off into a private reverie of her own.

  Orolandes was feeling better. The awful death-wish depression was leaving him. It was good to end a love affair this easily, with no hatred, no recriminations, no guilt…

  He saw her stiffen.

  She stood abruptly. “Let’s get down.”

  “Not so fast,” he said as she wound the line round her waist and backed toward the drop. “You’re in too much of a hurry. Curse it, slow down, you’ll get killed that way!”

  Mirandee ignored him. She went down backward, properly, but too dangerously damn fast. “Slow down!” he ordered her.

  “No time!”

  Huh? Well, it was her neck. He watched her descend.

  “I think I’ve chanted my last spell,” the Warlock whispered. His throat felt dry as dust.

  “This isn’t the end,” said Clubfoot. “Only the first attack. We’ll talk it over with Mirandee. Figure out what went wrong. Try again.”

  “Sure.”

  “I chanted youth spells for you once. I can do it again,” said Clubfoot, “once we land the Moon.” He paused. “That sounds insane.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  They sat slumped against the corpse of the World-Worm. It felt like sandstone now, crumbly soft rock that the winds would wear away. The magicians were exhausted, even Wavyhill, who had not spoken in minutes.

  “No maybe about it,” Clubfoot said suddenly. “It’s crazy. How long have there been men in the world? A couple of thousand years at least, right? Maybe more. Maybe a lot more. But the mana was still rich in the world when some unknown god made men. And they used it.”

  “Of course they did,” said the Warlock. “Why not?”

  “The names of the great magicians come down to us. Alhazred, Vulcan the Shaper, Hera—Look, what I’m getting at is this. There were a couple of thousand years of mana so rich that none of us, no magician of these last days, has the skill to use it
. His spells would kill him. Do you believe that nobody in those last two thousand years ever tried to land the Moon? Nobody?”

  “Why should they?”

  “Because it’s pretty! And not all those old masters were completely sane, Warlock. And some of the sane ones served mad emperors, like Vulcan served Trillion Mu.”

  “All right. They tried. Certainly they failed. Maybe they weren’t desperate enough.”

  “Maybe. Another thing. If we don’t know what keeps the Moon up, we sure as Fate don’t know why. One of the gods put it up, maybe; or many gods; or even a being of unknown power and unknown nature, something that doesn’t live on a world at all. If we don’t know why the Moon was put there, how can we dare call it down? We don’t even dare drain it of mana, because we don’t know what ancient spells that might ruin.”

  “You make sense,” the Warlock said with some reluctance. “I’ve even been wondering if it matters to anyone but us.”

  “Well, of course it matters…” Clubfoot trailed off.

  “Are you sure? Animals die. Classes of animals die. Civilizations die. New things come to take their places. Look at Prissthil. The sky-stone is gone, but is Prissthil hurting? It’s a thriving village, a trade center. The guard: his grandfather was a magician, but he’s not hurting. The Nordiks had captive magicians, and what did they want from them? Magic swords, and nothing else. Even the Frost Giants are happy enough with their god dormant. The strong ones adapt.”

  “I wonder what Mirandee’s in such a hurry about? She’s coming down awfully fast.”

  The Warlock didn’t hear. He said, “Maybe Piranther was right. We use Roze-Kattee directly, get what good we can out of the last god. Wavyhill, what do you think?”

  “I want to die,” said Wavyhill.

  “What?”

  “It’s not worth it. Another ten years of life, another hundred, and so what? People die. Even World-Worms die, and gods, and magicians.”

  “Wavyhill, what’s got into you?”

  “Nothing. Nothing’s got into me. What could get into a dead man? I don’t feel good, I don’t feel bad. I guess I like it that way. Turn me off, Warlock. Use the spell we used to break through the World-Worm’s cheek. It won’t even hurt.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Wavyhill said without regret.

  Mirandee found them that way, apathetic and dreamy-eyed, when she reached them out of breath and still trying to run. “Where is it?” she demanded.

  The Warlock looked up. “What? Oh, the god. It sleeps on.”

  “Troll dung it does! Can’t you feel it?”

  “Feel what?”

  “Why, it’s soaking up all the love and all the madness it can reach! Feeding on it!”

  The Warlock stood up fast. Of course, he’d been stupid, they’d all three slipped into sanity without noticing! Sweet reason and solid judgment and philosophical resignation, these were not common among sorcerers. As he scrambled up the piled stones behind Clubfoot, he wondered what had tipped off Mirandee, who was stable and sensible. Then he remembered the Greek swordsman.

  Clubfoot put his head in the hole. His voice was muffled. “Curse, we forgot to bring a torch! Mirandee, would you—”

  The sandstone wall next to them fell outward. A splinter of rock nicked the Warlock’s cheek; another struck Wavyhill, tok! Slabs of rock fell and smashed to sand, and behind them the last god stepped forth.

  God of love and madness, was it? Roze-Kattee seemed a god of madness alone. It was shaggy with coarse hair, hair that covered its face and chest, baring only the eyes. Its eyes blazed yellow-white, brighter than the daylight. Orolandes had called it small, but it wasn’t; it was bigger than the Warlock…and it was growing before their eyes.

  Its pointed ears twitched as it looked around at its world. Already its head was above the magicians, and it did not see them. Alien thoughts formed in the Warlock’s mind, crushingly powerful.

  ALONE? HOW CAN I BE ALONE? I CALL YOU ALL TO ANSWER, YOU WHO RULE THE WORLD…

  The last god was male and female both. Its male organs were mounted below and behind the vagina, in such a way that it could probably mate with itself. And this was embarrassingly clear, because the magicians were now looking up between the tremendous hairy pillars of its legs. It was still growing!

  How? Where did it find the power? Roze-Kattee’s range must be growing with its size, with its power. The Warlock had never anticipated this: that as the last god, Roze-Kattee was beyond competition. Every madman and every lover must now serve it as a worshipper.

  Wavyhill snarled in the Warlock’s ear. “Get hold of yourselves! Clubfoot, quick, what’s your true name? Warlock, wake him up!”

  Mirandee and Clubfoot were still gaping. The Warlock shook Clubfoot’s shoulder and shouted, “Your true name!”

  “Kaharoldil.”

  Wavyhill sang in the Guild tongue. My name is Kaharoldil, I am your father and mother…The Warlock joined, making Wavyhill’s gestures for him. After a moment Clubfoot joined them. It was the old loyalty spell they were using, a spell the Warlock had once rejected as unethical. It decreased the intelligence of its victims. But now he only wondered if it would work.

  They had come ill-equipped, and moved too fast. Too much had been forgotten about the gods. Perhaps nobody had ever known enough.

  Roze-Kattee was a hairy two-legged mountain now. Its head must be halfway up the World-Worm’s head. And still it grew. The Warlock imagined chill sanity engulfing the Frost Giants and their Nordik masters, sweeping over the Greek islands, crossing Asian and African mountains; wars ending as weaker armies surrendered to stronger, or as farmers-turned-soldier dropped their spears and returned in haste to harvest their crops; husbands returning to wives, and wives to husbands, for remembered fondness and remembered promises, old habits and the neighbors’ approval. Already the rebirth of Roze-Kattee must be changing the world.

  Orolandes lay on his back on the crumbly rock, looking up at the sky.

  He had tried a drug once. A red man had burned leaves in a fire, and Orolandes and some of his troop had sniffed the smoke. He had felt like this, then. Abstracted. Able to view himself, his friends, his environs, from a godlike distance and with godlike clarity.

  It had not seemed worthwhile to follow Mirandee down the mountain. Whatever she and the others were planning, it could hardly be worthy of his attention.

  Even the guilt was gone. That was nice.

  There was a muffled booming somewhere far away. He ignored it.

  Then a section of rock the size of a parade ground, not far from where he was lying, settled and hesitated and dropped away. Thunder sounded below him.

  The corpse of the World-Worm was decomposing.

  Orolandes moved by reflex. He swept gear into his pack (leaving gear on the battlefield could get you killed next time), donned the pack and went backward down the rope. He tried to keep his weight on the rock, not on the line. The knob of rock could crumble. His life was at stake, and Orolandes truly did not have the gift for abstraction.

  I CALL YOU TO ANSWER, YOU WHO RULE THE WORLD…

  Orolandes stiffened. Those were not his thoughts. He looked around.

  He was then halfway down the slope, several hundred feet up. He saw a beast-thing with glowing yellow eyes, eyes level with his own. The great eyes locked with his, considered him, then turned away.

  Orolandes continued to descend.

  Certainly it would have been easy to let go. His muscles ached from the strain of climbing…but the hurt didn’t seem to matter either. It was easier to follow his training.

  I am Kaharoldil, your teacher and your wet-nurse and your ancestors’ ghosts. I tell you things for your own good. Wavyhill and Mirandee and Clubfoot sang, and the Warlock’s fingers made patterns in the air.

  Roze-Kattee heard.

  The tall ears twitched, the head swiveled, the blazing yellow eyes found them clustered on the ground. Roze-Kattee dropped to knees and hands, the better to observe
them.

  Wavyhill said, “Ah, never mind.”

  Right. What did it matter? Clubfoot had stopped singing too. Roze-Kattee covered the sky; its yellow eyes were twin suns. The Warlock sat down, infinitely weary, and leaned back against crumbling rock to watch the last god grow.

  A thought formed, and tickled. Roze-Kattee was amused.

  YOU WOULD USE A LOVE-SPELL ON ME?

  Why, yes, a loyalty spell was a form of love spell. They’d been silly.

  SILLY AND PRESUMPTUOUS. BUT YOU HAVE WAKED ME FROM MY DEATH SLEEP. HOW MAY I REWARD YOU?

  The Warlock thought about it. Truly, he didn’t know. What must be would be.

  YOU WISHED TO BRING DOWN THE MOON? Again the thought tickled. PERHAPS I WILL.

  “Wait,” said Clubfoot, but he did not go on.

  Now the Warlock imagined a fat sphere, blue and bluish-brown and clotted white. He sensed a watery film of life covering that sphere…and he sensed how thin it was. Remove the life from the world, and what would have changed?

  This resignation, this fatalism, this dispassionate overview of reality went far beyond mere sanity, thought the Warlock. Roze-Kattee had practiced his power long before men ever put names to it. Now he imagined a smaller sphere, its rough surface the color of Wavyhill’s skull. It cruised past the larger sphere in a curved path. Now it stopped moving, then began to drift toward the larger sphere. Now the spheres bumped, and deformed, and merged in fire. A sticky cloud of flame began to cool and condense.

  IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED?

  “No,” Mirandee whispered.

  “No!” Wavyhill shouted. “No, you maniac! We didn’t know!”

  BUT IT IS WHAT I WANT. I CAN LIVE THROUGH THE TIME OF FIRE. I NEED THE…STATE OF THINGS THAT LETS GODS LIVE, THAT WARPS DEAD REALITY TO LIVING REALITY. WITH THE DEAD MOON’S AID I WILL PEOPLE THE CHANGED EARTH WITH MY CHILDREN. BECAUSE YOU HAVE SERVED ME, I WILL CREATE EACH OF YOU OVER AGAIN.

  The last god had grown so huge that Orolandes couldn’t even find it at first. He stepped back from the rope and looked around him. There were the magicians, a good distance away, doing nothing obvious about the menace. There, what he’d taken for a mountain became a pillar of coarse pale hair…leading up into a hairy torso…Orolandes froze, trying to understand.