The Unwelcome Warlock

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  This whole discussion about Vond wanting to hire himself a small private army was interesting, but Edara could not see what it had to do with Hanner the Generous turning up in the Refuge in an advanced state of exhaustion, or with the absence of anyone in the upper stories of Warlock House.

  “Why can’t we do it?” the third voice asked.

  “Do what?” Zallin said.

  “Why can’t we be your guards?”

  “Because you were warlocks,” Vond said. “What do you know about using a sword or a spear?”

  No one spoke for a moment, then Vond clapped his hands and said, “Well, then! Zallin, go find some recruits — men who do know how to use swords — and fetch them back here. I’ll want a couple of dozen, at the very least. As for the rest of you, you’ll be my staff. I’ll need a purser, and at least one secretary, and an envoy — maybe several envoys. Why don’t you think it over? Discuss among yourselves, and when I come back down you can tell me who’s chosen which role.”

  “Where are you going?” the fourth voice asked.

  “Upstairs,” Vond said. “I want to change my clothes — ah, Zallin, you might also see about finding a tailor or two, while you’re at it! My wardrobe here is hopelessly inadequate.”

  “Yes, your Majesty,” Zallin said sullenly.

  “Off with you, then!”

  Then Edara heard footsteps, and a moment later the front door slammed. She leaned over a little further, to peer down into the entryway, and found herself looking the Great Vond in the eye. She froze.

  “Hai,” the warlock said. “Who are you?”

  Edara’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. She closed it again.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Vond said gently. “You’re a former warlock, aren’t you? I can see you are.”

  “Yes, my lord,” she said, drawing back over the railing.

  “It’s ‘your Majesty,’” Vond said. “Where did you come from? I thought I’d gone through the whole house.”

  Edara tried to think of some clever answer, some foolproof lie, but nothing came, and as Vond’s eyes began to harden at how long she was taking to answer, she lost her nerve and blurted out the truth.

  “I was in Hanner’s Refuge, your Majesty!”

  “Hanner’s…you mean that magical tapestry thing?”

  “Yes, my lo…your Majesty.”

  “And he chased you out, as I ordered?” Vond looked past her. “Where are the others?”

  “No, he…I came back on my own, your Majesty. No one chased me out.”

  “Hanner didn’t tell you I wanted everyone out of there?”

  “No, your Majesty. I haven’t seen Hanner since I touched the tapestry.” She carefully didn’t specify which tapestry.

  “But I saw him step into it!”

  “I…well, time is different in the other world, your Majesty. I didn’t see him.”

  “Time is…Is it?” Vond’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

  “Yes, your Majesty. I was quite surprised to see that it was morning here; it was mid-afternoon in the Refuge.” She didn’t mention that it was always mid-afternoon there, if the term had any meaning, and if the direction she thought of as “west” was really west, and not east or south.

  “How interesting! Why did you emerge, then, if Hanner had not yet informed you that I wanted you all evicted?”

  “I…I just wanted to see what was happening, your Majesty.”

  Vond turned and called down to someone below, out of Edara’s line of sight, “That, my friends, is why I want the place cleared out, and one reason I want some guards around here. This woman simply popped out of nowhere right here inside our stronghold, and we didn’t know a thing about it! It’s intolerable.”

  “I don’t understand,” Edara said. “What’s going on?”

  “What’s going on,” Vond said, “is that the lying scoundrel who calls herself the head of the Wizards’ Guild in Ethshar of the Spices, Ithinia of the Isle, tried to trick me into abandoning my magic so that she could continue to play the power behind the throne here. In my own defense I had to make some changes, and that included claiming this house for my own, and removing all those guests Hanner had allowed to clutter up the place. A few have stayed on as my sworn supporters; the rest I sent away. Now, my dear, you have the same choice to make that all the others made — will you swear eternal loyalty to me and to the cause of restoring warlockry to a position of supreme power in Ethshar, or will you be cast out into the street to make your own way?”

  Edara met Vond’s eyes for a moment as she considered that. The emperor almost made it sound tempting, but she had no interest in swearing loyalty to anyone. Besides, she wanted to know what was happening in the rest of the city before making any irrevocable decisions. She could probably come back if she decided following Vond was her best option. “I…I guess I’ll just go,” she said.

  “Fine!” Vond drew himself up to his full height — or rather more than his full height, actually, since he rose upward into the air of the stairwell. “Go, then!” He pointed toward the door.

  Edara went. She wanted to find out what was hanging over Lower Street, and to see where Zallin was going, but most of all, she wanted to get away from this flying madman. Perhaps she could also stop in to talk to this Ithinia of the Isle, whoever she was.

  She hurried down the stairs, dodging quickly around Vond’s dangling boots, and then out the front door, across the dooryard and through the gate onto High Street. Then she stopped and looked around.

  The gargoyle that had perched on the house across the street was gone; that was odd. The street was neither deserted nor crowded, but everyone in sight seemed to be in a hurry, trotting or running rather than walking. The one coach she saw was moving west at bone-rattling speed.

  Lower Street, Vond had said. She rounded the corner onto Coronet Street and jogged quickly down the hill, then around the angle onto Merchant Street, which seemed a little more crowded than usual, and thence to Lower.

  Then she stopped dead in her tracks and stared eastward, not believing what she saw.

  There was a palace hanging in the sky. The top half of it was golden marble, like the overlord’s palace, shining in the sun; the lower half was rough dark gray stone she did not recognize.

  She took a few steps back, out onto Merchant Street, and looked down the hill toward the plaza. The street was still there, and the plaza was still there, crowded with people, but the part of the palace that should have been visible beyond the plaza was gone; there was a gap, and then in the distance a cluster of strange, crooked little buildings that she recognized as the Old City — which should have been hidden behind the overlord’s palace.

  She looked at the thing in the sky over Lower Street again, then down Merchant Street, then above Lower Street.

  Yes, that was the overlord’s palace up there. It had been ripped up out of the ground, taking thirty or forty feet of stone foundation with it.

  Edara had been a warlock; she knew how the magic worked. Since waking up in Aldagmor she had heard plenty of stories about the Great Vond, supposedly the most powerful warlock who ever lived. She knew immediately who and what was holding that thing up. She just didn’t know why. She lowered her gaze, thinking that there might be some indication on the street below.

  Much of Lower Street was closed. A line of half a dozen guardsmen in the familiar red kilts and yellow tunics — at least those hadn’t changed in her twenty-five year absence! — stretched across it three blocks east of where she stood, turning aside anyone who tried to enter the portion of the street beneath that hanging horror. They might not know anything beyond their orders, but on the other hand, there was no harm in asking. Edara trotted the three blocks quickly, then waited politely until one of the soldiers was standing quietly, not talking to anyone else.

  “Hai,” she said. “What’s going on?” She pointed at the structure blocking out the sky.

  “Warlock,” the guard said. “Feuding with a wizard who lives up the str
eet.” He pointed a thumb toward a house on the north side of the street.

  “Didn’t the warlocks all lose their magic?”

  The guard turned up an empty palm. “Most of them,” he said. “Not this one.”

  “What did the wizard do?”

  The empty hand came up again. “Don’t know.” He glanced up over his shoulder. “Whatever it was, I wish she hadn’t. I have friends up there.”

  “Oh,” Edara said, startled. “Oh. There are people in it?”

  The soldier nodded. “Lots of them. They did get most of them down earlier this morning, with flying carpets and the like, but there are still at least a dozen guardsmen, and some other people, too. In fact, the wizard who started all this is up there, trying some spell to keep it from falling if the warlock drops it.”

  Well, Edara thought, so much for talking to Ithinia of the Isle. Edara had no way of getting up there; if Ithinia was in the floating palace, then they weren’t going to have any discussions any time soon.

  She might be able to find Zallin, though. He had been sent to recruit fighters, and in her day, twenty-five years ago, there had been two parts of the city where she would have gone if she was looking for hired swords. If she wanted simple thugs, men who would do anything for a round of silver, and she didn’t care that some of them wouldn’t be much smarter than the average rat, she would go to Westwark, or maybe a few blocks up into Crookwall.

  If she wanted men who knew what to do with a weapon, and who could be trusted to handle something more complicated than a street brawl, she would go to the south side of Camptown, past Superstition Street, and on into Eastwark. That was where one could find retired guardsmen who might be bored of the quiet life and eager to enhance their pensions…

  But no, that was what she would do. It wasn’t what Zallin would do. He would want something faster and simpler. Her method would involve asking around, knocking on doors, talking to people — he wouldn’t want to spend that much time and effort on it, not when Vond might be getting impatient. Zallin would go where recruiters always went to find gullible young idiots seeking adventure, or simply people with no resources who were looking for work — Shiphaven Market.

  She thanked the guard, then turned and headed west along Lower Street, across Merchant Street into the Old Merchants’ Quarter, but then stopped.

  Zallin had spent his adult life as a warlock; he might be more familiar with the notice-boards and recruiting at the Arena, up near the Wizards’ Quarter, than with Shiphaven Market. He was also supposed to find a tailor, and Shiphaven wasn’t the best place for that. Neither was Arena.

  Edara realized she didn’t need to find Zallin, in any case. Wherever he went to hire his guardsmen and tailor, he would be bringing them back to the house on High Street. She turned back, and headed back toward Warlock House.

  Simply standing in the middle of High Street did not seem wise; she did not want to attract Vond’s attention. Instead she walked up and down, trying to blend in with the normal traffic, but always turning back just before she got out of sight of the iron gate and white door.

  The sun crept across the sky, as the one in Hanner’s Refuge had not, and Edara’s feet grew sore. She was tired, hungry, and thirsty, all sensations that were still not entirely familiar after her recently-ended years as a warlock. She wondered whether there was really any point in waiting, but she didn’t know what else to do, or where else to go. She would happily have gone back through the tapestry into the refuge if she could have found a way to get safely into the house and up to the fourth floor, but she could not see how that might be accomplished.

  At last she spotted Zallin marching up High Street from the west, with perhaps a score of men at his heels. She saw no sign of a tailor; these all looked very much like the fighters Vond had wanted. She hurried toward them, trying to think what she would say.

  Nothing came; she stopped at the corner of the fence and gripped the iron railing, trying to come up with something to tell or ask Zallin.

  He glanced at her as he led his troops through the gate, but showed no sign of recognition. He crossed the dooryard, then turned on the doorstep and announced, “Wait here, while I inform his Majesty of your arrival.”

  His followers stopped, about half in the dooryard, the other half still on the street outside the gate. Then Zallin turned, opened the door, and strode inside.

  Edara studied the men, trying not to draw their attention. They were mostly young, and all looked reasonably strong and formidable. None of them had any visible weapons beyond the belt-knives that almost every Ethsharite carried, and Edara wondered about that; she had the distinct impression Vond had wanted swordsmen.

  Then the front door opened again, and Zallin emerged. He stepped down into the dooryard as his men made way for him. Seconds later Vond emerged, flying, as always. He rose up and hovered over the men, who stared up at him with varying degrees of surprise. He looked down appraisingly, then spoke.

  “Welcome!” he said. “I trust Zallin had made clear why I am hiring you?”

  “Not entirely,” one of then men said.

  “Your Majesty,” another quickly added, with a bow.

  “I intend you to be my honor guard,” Vond proclaimed. “You will stand ready to defend me from any threat that I do not see, or any danger from which my magic cannot protect me. You will be treated with honor and respect. You will be housed here, in Warlock House, and fed at my table. You will be paid generously — has my aide Zallin named an amount?”

  “Four rounds a day,” someone called.

  “Done! Excellent! And a bonus will be paid for every incident in which you serve me well. Now, I do not see any weapons — are you armed?”

  Several of the men exchanged glances. “No,” one replied.

  “Zallin said you would provide weapons,” another said.

  “Then so I shall! Go inside, and let Zallin assign you your rooms, and see that you’re fed; I will be back shortly with your arms and armor.”

  “Wait, your Majesty,” Zallin protested. “Where are you going?”

  Vond turned. “I am going to Camptown to get what these fine men need. Then you and I, Zallin, are going to direct my troops in evicting a bunch of trespassers from my home.”

  “Trespassers?”

  “Yes, trespassers! Including that Hanner who used to own it. I told him to send out all the squatters he invited in, but have they emerged? No, they have not! Apparently I can’t trust anyone else to handle this, so I will see to it myself.”

  “You mean the tapestry?”

  “Yes, I mean the tapestry! I wonder whether Ithinia somehow arranged for Hanner to have it. However it got here, though, I can’t have it in my home with all those people on the other side — Hanner tells me that they could emerge into my home at any time, and probably murder me in my sleep, if I don’t do something about it. Certainly, that one woman popped out of nowhere, just as Hanner had predicted. Simply destroying the tapestry apparently won’t solve the problem; I need to get all those people out first. So that’s what we’re going to do, and then I’ll destroy the damned thing.”

  “I understand, your Majesty,” Zallin said with a bow. “Then we’ll await your return.”

  “Do that,” Vond said. Then he shot upward, and vanished into the eastern sky.

  Edara watched him go, then turned to see Zallin herding his new recruits into the house. She bit her lip, trying to think what she should do. She needed to warn Hanner and Rudhira and the others, but how could she get past all those men to get back to the tapestry? She could see no way to do it.

  But maybe she could get a message to them, even if she couldn’t get there herself. If she could find a wizard and talk him into doing a spell on credit, and if Hanner was still asleep, there might be a way. She turned east, as Vond had, but instead of flying she simply ran up High Street, headed for the Wizards’ Quarter.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Hanner opened his eyes to see a completely unfamiliar ceiling o
verhead, and bright midday sun outside the room’s only window. He blinked, and sat up. Only then did he remember where he was. He was in the refuge, the village beyond the tapestry, and Vond had sent him here to chase everyone out.

  “Feeling better?” Rudhira asked.

  His head snapped around. She was sitting quietly on the floor in one corner. “I didn’t know you were here,” he said.

  “Where else would I be?” she asked. “You’re in my bed.”

  “I am?” He looked down at the collection of rags that had served as his mattress, and realized they were all either nightclothes or warlock black.

  “When I brought people new clothes, I took the old ones,” Rudhira said. “Some of them might be wearable again, with a little care, but why bother? They’re all thirty years out of style. So I brought them in here and used them as bedding.”

  Hanner nodded. “Sensible,” he said.

  “So why are you here? I didn’t really expect you to come through the tapestry. In fact, I came here myself partly to get out of your way.”

  “Vond sent me,” Hanner told her. “He wants everyone cleared out. He’s claimed my house, and he doesn’t like the idea of having dozens of people who could get into the attic without his knowledge.”

  “It would be easy enough to block the exit, wouldn’t it?”

  Hanner frowned at her. “It probably would, yes,” he said, “but I wasn’t about to tell him that! Then you’d all be trapped here.”

  “That wouldn’t really be so dreadful,” Rudhira said. “I mean, look around — it’s pleasant here. Warm and sunny, and there are nuts and fish, and the water’s good.”

  “Fine, but I wanted to make it your choice, not Vond’s.”

  She smiled. “Generous as always,” she said. The smile vanished. “I’ll go tell everyone you’re awake, and when you’re ready you can come tell us all about it. We’ll meet in the village square.”

  “There’s a village square?”

  “Well, there’s an open area we call the village square, though I guess it’s really more of an irregular hexagon. You’ll see.”