The Unwelcome Warlock

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  They were traveling below the height of the peaks and on the eastern side of the ridge, so that the mountains appeared as great dark shapes with the sun’s fading glow outlining them in red and gold. Calimor Castle was likewise a silhouette, one that passed and fell quickly behind as Vond flew steadily north-northwest.

  They flew over a deep valley walled with rocky cliffs, a valley running east and west and separating the half-dozen most southerly mountains from the rest of the range. Sterren was fairly sure that marked the boundary between Calimor and Eknissamor; those cliffs made it impossible to cross directly from one nation to the other without using magic. To the east a kingdom called Yaroia extended from the foothills out onto the plain, and there were roads from Yaroia to both Calimor and Eknissamor, while to the west were similar routes through Gajamor, one of the largest of the Small Kingdoms. Up in the mountains, though, there was no non-magical way across that rift.

  Calimor was a very small country, and it was only moments before Vond and Sterren were across the border valley and into Eknissamor. The mountains to the west grew steadily higher, blocking more and more of the sunset and subsequent twilight; the foothills to the east were larger, as well. There was no broad, fertile plain here, as there was back in southern Lumeth or in Thanoria; there were rocky uplands where sheep grazed between stony outcroppings.

  Then, as full night should have been falling, Sterren noticed a glow in the sky — but not to due east, as the sunrise should be, nor due west, where the sun had set; it was to the northeast. A few minutes later they came in sight of the source.

  “The Tower of Flame,” Sterren said.

  It was a column of bright orange flame roaring upward into the night sky, easily a hundred and fifty feet high; as they neared it the mountain air lost its chill, and when they stopped about fifty yards away Sterren could feel its warmth on his face, as if he were standing right beside an ordinary fire.

  This was no ordinary fire, though; quite aside from its size, it was burning on solid rock, with no visible fuel. The pillar of flame rose from a patch of bare stone perhaps a dozen yards down from the summit of a good-sized mountain — good-sized, but not particularly steep; the long-ago wizard who lit the fire could have reached the site on foot, without any magical assistance.

  The entire peak was bare stone. They were well above the timberline, and had left the grazing sheep behind; nothing of any size lived this far up. This was the central ridge of the Southern Mountains, not far from the highest peaks.

  Those highest mountains were faintly visible in the darkness to the northwest, where they formed a virtually impassable barrier between Ansumor to the west and Swezmor to the east; Vond and Sterren were close enough that the mountains would have been plainly visible in daylight, towering over them. Even by night, they could be made out as black shapes, darker than the sky and untroubled by stars.

  Here in northern Eknissamor the peaks were lower, and the slopes were still gentle enough to be climbed without any magic or special equipment, and according to legend some wizard, long ago, had stopped here for the night. He or she had used a trivial little spell to light a campfire on the eastern slope of a mountain.

  The spell had gone spectacularly wrong, though, and the immense fire was still burning, centuries later. The dozen sticks of firewood the wizard had brought had been consumed in the first few seconds, and the magical flame had been burning without fuel ever since.

  It was famous. People came from far away to see it — as Vond and Sterren were seeing it now. There were roads leading down to the capital towns of Eknissamor in the east, Ansumor in the west, and Luvannion to the southwest, and sometimes those roads were almost crowded.

  Sightseers generally did not come here this time of year, though; the risk of being caught in a winter storm was too great. Spring was a much safer season for a visit. Visitors would come up in tens and twenties and set up camp around the Tower of Flame, observing it throughout the day, so they could see it against the daylit sky, could compare it to sunrise and sunset, and could see how it lit up the night sky.

  There were few signs of those camps, though; the guides generally tried to keep the area clean, and of course, there were no ashes or scorch-marks from campfires — why bother to build any lesser fire when that was available? Cooking one’s dinner in it was part of the experience, and required nothing but the food and a very long stick.

  Vond and Sterren hung in the air, staring at the flames and feeling the heat wash over them.

  “It’s impressive,” Sterren said.

  “It is,” Vond agreed.

  After a long moment of silence, Vond added, “It takes a lot of energy to do that. It’s been burning for a century?”

  “Eight hundred years,” Sterren said.

  “That long?”

  “So they say.”

  “A wizard did it?”

  “Yes.”

  Vond fell silent again, but eventually said, “I’m not afraid of the Wizards’ Guild.”

  Sterren resisted the impulse to glance at his companion or show any sign of surprise or concern. Vond’s comment hardly followed directly from anything they had said, but its roots were plain enough. “So I understand,” Sterren said.

  “I’m not afraid of them,” Vond repeated, “but they do have some powerful magic. They did that.” He pointed toward the flame.

  “Yes,” Sterren said.

  “I don’t think they could kill me as easily as they think, but there’s no reason to anger them if I don’t need to.”

  “Of course not.”

  “They banned warlocks from the empire?”

  “Yes, your Majesty.”

  “Including me?”

  Sterren hesitated. “I do not recall whether you were mentioned specifically,” he said. “After all, you had been Called; we didn’t think your return would be an issue.”

  Vond nodded. “I could fight them — but why should I? I only went to Semma in the first place to avoid the Calling; I never wanted to stay there, not if I had a choice. If the Guild doesn’t want me there, why should I argue?”

  “I don’t know,” Sterren said helplessly.

  “They don’t frighten me, and I don’t believe they’re anywhere near as powerful as they pretend to be, but what’s the point of antagonizing them?” He was staring at the Tower of Flame as he spoke, and Sterren thought there was something odd in his tone, as if he were trying to convince himself of something.

  The question didn’t seem to need an answer, so Sterren said nothing.

  “Sterren, do you have a warlock’s sight?” Vond asked.

  “Do…” Sterren hesitated, trying to guess what answer Vond wanted to hear, but could not decide what would be safest. He settled for the truth. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Not really.”

  Vond glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

  Sterren felt trapped, but he still saw no reason not to be honest. “I don’t see all the little bits of everything, the way some warlocks say they do, but sometimes I can…I don’t know how to describe it. I can tell how something is moving, and where the strains are.”

  Vond nodded. “That’s how it starts,” he said. “But you can’t see heat?”

  “Not any more than anyone else. If the air ripples, I can see that.”

  “No, that’s the air. I meant the heat itself.”

  “No, I can’t see that.”

  “You’ve been a warlock for fifteen years, and you haven’t learned to see energy?”

  “I never tried to,” Sterren protested. “I never wanted to. I didn’t want to be Called.”

  Vond glanced at him curiously. “You didn’t want to be a warlock?”

  “Why would I? I was your regent! Who needed dangerous magic on top of that?”

  “So you’re a coward?”

  Sterren’s head jerked back, but then he relaxed. There was no reason to let Vond’s words upset him. No one had dared to call him a coward in a very long time, but when one looked at it realistica
lly, there was some truth in the accusation.

  “Pretty much, yes,” he said.

  “I’m not. I’m not afraid of anything.”

  Sterren remembered Vond cowering in his palace, trying desperately to resist the Calling; if Sterren was any judge, the warlock emperor had been terrified. But if he chose to forget or ignore that, Sterren was not inclined to argue, because Sterren was a coward, by some measures. He was afraid of a great many things. He tried not to let that interfere with doing what needed to be done, and he might try to hide it from others, but he wasn’t going to pretend to himself that he wasn’t scared by Vond, and by the Wizards’ Guild, and by any number of other things.

  To Vond, those miserable nights of fighting Aldagmor’s pull had been just a few days ago. He was probably still at the stage of being embarrassed by his own fear, and trying to deny it. In a few years he might admit that yes, he had been frightened, but right now, Sterren thought, Vond was trying to demonstrate, to himself as much as to anyone else, that he was a brave man, and that the Calling had not reduced him to a whimpering child.

  “Of course not; why should you be?” Sterren said. “You’re the Great Vond.”

  “Exactly!” Vond was staring at the Tower of Flame again. “Do you know why I asked whether you could see energy?”

  “No.”

  “Because I wanted to talk to you about that fire.”

  Sterren looked past Vond’s legs at the flames. “What about it?”

  “It’s not really flame, in the usual sense,” Vond said. “It’s…it’s something else, something I’ve never seen anywhere else.”

  “Well, yes,” Sterren said. “It’s magic.”

  “Yes, I know that,” Vond said. “But I’ve never seen magic quite like it. I’ve never seen anything magical that was so big before. Usually when I watch wizardry in action it’s all sort of vague — I can’t focus on it. It’s as if it’s not really all there, or as if I’m seeing it through a dirty window. But this thing has a pattern to it; there are streaks of…of unreality, woven together with something that looks and feels like fire, but…the actual fire isn’t there anymore. We’re seeing a fire that burned a long time ago, trapped in magic and reflected over and over.”

  “Really?” Sterren stared at the flame, but all he saw was flame.

  “Yes. And I think I see how I could break it.”

  “What?”

  “I think I see how I could break the pattern. I could put it out.”

  Sterren stared up at Vond’s back, then back at the tower. “Legend has it that various wizards tried to put it out, off and on for seventy or eighty years, and never managed it,” he said.

  “They were wizards. I’m a warlock.”

  Sterren nodded. “So you are,” he said.

  “I’m very tempted to do it, just to see if I really can,” Vond said.

  “That would be a disappointment to the local guides who bring visitors up here to see it,” Sterren said.

  “Oh? I suppose it would. I hadn’t thought about them. I was wondering, though, whether it would upset the Wizards’ Guild if I snuffed their little candle.”

  “You could really just…snuff it out?”

  Vond hesitated. “Well, actually,” he said, “I’m not sure. I know I could break the pattern that holds it together, but I’m not sure where all that…that stuff, that magic, would go. It might just disappear.”

  Sterren did not like the sound of that. “Might?”

  “Or it might explode,” Vond said.

  Sterren considered that for a moment, then said, “I’d rather not be here when you try it, then.”

  “Good point,” Vond said. “And there are those guides you mentioned. But I might want to try it someday.”

  “If you’re worried about annoying the Guild, you could just ask them if they mind. For all I know, they’d be glad to get rid of it.”

  “That’s very true.” Vond contemplated the burning pillar for a moment longer, then raised an empty palm and turned away to the west. “It can wait, then. On to Ethshar!”

  “On to Ethshar,” Sterren echoed, without much enthusiasm.

  But as they flew on, and the Tower of Flame receded behind them, it struck him that being Called had mellowed Vond a little. At the height of his power, when he was paving highways and erecting his palace and reshaping various bits of landscape, he would have tested his theory and blown out the flame immediately, without worrying about the Guild or the guides or Sterren. His caution was a good sign.

  But he was still insanely dangerous, and Sterren was looking forward to getting as far away from him as possible once they reached Ethshar.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The house on Mustard Street was unremarkable. It stood three stories tall on the west side of the street, half a block north of Inlet Street. It was about twenty feet wide, with a central door flanked by shuttered windows; candlelight leaked through the slats. The eaves above him were carved, though the night was too dark for Hanner to see what they represented; the doorposts, which were more visible, were carved to resemble trees wrapped in flowering vines. There were no shrines, signs, or other displays in sight.

  Hanner stared at the house for a moment. He glanced back at Rudhira, who had accompanied him from Ithinia’s house, then stepped forward, squared his shoulders, and knocked.

  He heard muffled voices inside, and waited, and a moment later the door opened a crack. “Yes?” a familiar female voice asked. A burning candle appeared in the opening, held up to illuminate the caller’s face.

  Before Hanner could reply, that familiar voice said, “Hanner?”

  The candle dropped and went out, and Hanner heard thumping as the person who had held it stumbled back against the wall of the entryway.

  “Mavi?” he called. “Mavi of Newmarket?”

  “Mavi?” another man’s voice called from inside the house.

  Hanner stepped back. He was unsure what was happening in there, but he did not think barging in would improve the situation. There was more thumping, and some rattling, and Mavi’s voice said something Hanner couldn’t catch.

  That voice was different. When she had spoken previously, Hanner had not been sure that it was Mavi; the voice had been familiar, but had not carried that instant recognition that it always had before. It had changed in his absence.

  Once again, he forced himself to remember that he had been gone for seventeen years, even though it felt like less than a sixnight. His sudden reappearance had obviously come as a shock. He waited on the step, giving his wife time to recover.

  He heard that man’s voice again, and then the door was flung open and light spilled out into the street, silhouetting a tall man’s figure. A woman was peering over the man’s right shoulder, and holding a candle aloft.

  Hanner blinked. Mavi had changed. Oh, there could be no question that the woman holding the candle was his wife, but her hair was shorter and streaked with gray, her face was wider and lined with age, and her expression as she stared at him wasn’t her usual calm half-smile, but a look verging on horror.

  “Who are you?” the man in the doorway demanded.

  “Hanner,” Hanner replied. “Formerly Hanner the Warlock, now just Hanner. Who are you?”

  “My name is Terrin Adar’s son,” he replied. “What do you mean, formerly Hanner the Warlock? What are you doing here?”

  “I’m looking for my…for Mavi of Newmarket.”

  “Why? What do you want with my wife?”

  Hanner stopped breathing.

  He had not wanted to believe what Ithinia had said, that Mavi had remarried, but here her new husband was, standing before him.

  After all, Hanner had been gone for seventeen years, and it had been settled long ago that Called warlocks were legally dead. He could hardly expect a wonderful woman like Mavi to remain a lonely widow.

  And there she was, staring at him over her new husband’s shoulder, not saying anything, her face seventeen years older than he remembered it. />
  Hanner let out his breath. “I was her first husband,” he said. “The father of her children.”

  “No, you aren’t that Hanner,” Terrin said, frowning. “He was Called years ago.”

  “Yes, I was,” Hanner agreed. “But now I’m back. The Source is gone, and all the Called warlocks are coming home.”

  “It’s really Hanner,” Mavi said from behind Terrin. She raised the candle for a better view. “It really is him. He hasn’t aged a day.”

  “About three days, actually,” Hanner said. “Three very long days. Or maybe four or five, if you count the time it took me to reach Aldagmor — part of it is a bit hazy.”

  Terrin threw his wife a glance, then turned his attention back to Hanner. “I heard rumors, but I didn’t believe them,” he said. “I knew something was wrong with the warlocks, but I didn’t know the Called were coming back.”

  “The source of all the warlocks’ power…went away,” Hanner said, waving a hand. “That means no more warlocks, and it released everyone it had Called. It hadn’t killed us, just trapped us, and it let us go. So here I am.” Then he remembered his companion. “Here we are,” he said, gesturing to take in Rudhira.

  “Who is that?” Mavi asked, craning to see.

  “Rudhira of Camptown,” Rudhira answered. “We’ve met, but you might not remember — it’s been more than thirty years, for you.”

  “Rudhira? But you were Called ages ago! And you don’t look any older!”

  “The Warlock Stone was protected by a preserving spell,” Hanner said. “Anyone caught in it didn’t age; for me, the last seventeen years didn’t happen. For Rudhira, it’s thirty-four; last she knew we hadn’t even formed the Council of Warlocks, and Azrad the Sedentary was still the overlord.”

  “This isn’t real,” Mavi moaned. “It can’t be. You’re some shape-shifting demon, come to torment me, or some wizard’s illusion.”