The Unwelcome Warlock loe-11

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Zil’s Dehydration, Fendel’s Assassin, the Rune of the Implacable Stalker, the Spell of Ghastly Dissolution, the Cold Death, the White Curse — any of them might work, but none of them were certain...

  “Mistress?”

  She started at the sound of her manservant’s voice, and sat up. “Yes, Obdur?”

  Obdur was standing in the door of the solarium; he bowed. “Chairman Zallin of the Council of Warlocks insists on speaking to you.”

  “Zallin? Whatever for?”

  “He did not say.”

  A thought struck her. “Did he call himself Chairman of the Council of Warlocks? Or did you just remember him by that title?”

  “He did, mistress.”

  Ithinia gave a small snort. What Council of Warlocks? Except for Vond and Sterren, there weren’t any more warlocks — well, unless Vond had been making more.

  Which was another reason to deal with Vond quickly — he could make more Lumeth-based warlocks. That was known. From what she had heard of him Ithinia doubted he really wanted to share his power, but he could, and if he wasn’t disposed of promptly, he might.

  But Zallin probably didn’t know anything about Vond.

  “I will meet him in the parlor momentarily, Obdur.”

  Obdur bowed. “Yes, mistress.” He turned and slipped out of the room.

  Ithinia sighed and got to her feet. Zallin didn’t really have any business here; he hadn’t been invited, and he no longer represented anyone the Guild needed to treat with respect. If he wanted to buy a spell, he could go to the Wizards’ Quarter like anyone else.

  Maybe he was coming to formally renounce his role and disband the Council of Warlocks; after all, it had been created to appease the Hegemony and the Wizards’ Guild, and it had been Ithinia and the Guild that had forced the overlord to accept it. It would be appropriate for an announcement of the Council’s dissolution to come to her, as the city’s senior Guildmaster, and also to the overlord or his representative. The overlord who had first accepted the Council’s existence was dead, of course, but his son now reigned as Azrad VII — though perhaps not for very much longer, given his age. Ithinia’s best sources said that Azrad was taking a cautious attitude toward the disappearance of warlockry, waiting to be sure there weren’t any nasty surprises involved.

  The resignation of the Chairman of the Council might be a surprise, but it wouldn’t be a nasty one. She had the impression that the overlord and his court weren’t particularly fond of Zallin.

  She guessed that if that was indeed Zallin’s errand, the only reason he had come here first was that it was more or less on the way from Warlock House to the palace.

  Remembering what Zallin was like, she doubted that he was coming to renounce anything. Poor Hanner, the first Chairman, might have done that, but Zallin? No.

  “Poor Hanner?” But Hanner was coming back, wasn’t he? Rothiel had spoken to him with the Spell of Invaded Dreams, and confirmed that he was alive and well, at least for the moment. Strange, to think she might see him again. She hadn’t known many Called warlocks, so she had not really been thinking of them as individuals, but she remembered Hanner. He had been a well-meaning sort, usually not very assertive, but able to show real backbone when pressed. For the most part, she had found him very agreeable. When he was Called, she had thought of him as dead — but the dead didn’t come back. Well, not unless necromancy was involved, and she had never done much of that.

  She took her time walking up the passage to the parlor, straightening her robe as she went; as usual, she was dressed in a white robe, this one relatively simple and trimmed with blue and yellow.

  She hoped Zallin had come to formally dissolve the Council, but she doubted it. More likely he was here to plead for her help — perhaps he had taken on some job he could no longer perform, and wanted her to do it for him. That was much more typical of Zallin of the Mismatched Eyes than any sort of formality.

  She took a deep breath and swept into the parlor.

  Zallin was there, standing in the center of the room, smiling crookedly at her — a nervous smile, not the smirk he displayed when he was pleased with himself. He wore the traditional black tunic and breeches of a warlock, with no sign of office. The most distinctive thing about him was his eyes — the left one a very ordinary brown, the right a peculiar shade of pale blue.

  “Zallin of the Mismatched Eyes,” she said. “Why have you intruded upon my privacy?”

  He hastily bowed, and when his head came back up he said, “Guildmaster, I’m sorry to trouble you, but I’m here on a matter of some urgency.”

  “Urgent for you, perhaps.”

  “Oh, I believe this concerns everyone, Guildmaster. Are you aware that warlocks throughout the city have lost their magic?”

  She stared at him, trying to keep her face impassive; it would not do to laugh. “I have been informed of this, yes,” she said.

  “Well...do you know what caused it?”

  Ithinia considered carefully before answering.

  She knew that warlocks did not do divinations. They could not hear thoughts, as witches did, or foresee the future. They could not ask questions of the gods. They could not buy secrets from demons. They could use none of the dozens of spells that wizards used to investigate mysteries. They claimed to be able to see into the structure of everything around them, all the particles and flows of energy that made up the World, but only within a limited radius. Information was not where their talents lay. Still, it was hard to believe that this man was as ignorant of the situation as he appeared to be.

  “The source of your magic, which fell from the sky on the Night of Madness, has departed from the World,” she said. “Something came to its aid, and took it back into the sky, to whatever universe they both came from.”

  His mouth fell open, but no words emerged. She watched calmly as he attempted to gather his wits.

  “It’s...it’s gone?” he said at last. “It’s not just Ethshar of the Spices?”

  “It’s gone,” she confirmed.

  “Can you bring it back?”

  It was her turn to stand in stunned silence, though she managed to keep her jaw from hanging. Finally, she said simply, “No.”

  “Are you sure? I came to you because I thought perhaps the Guild had found a way to block it from the city, and I was going to plead for you to remove the spell — but you say it’s really gone?”

  “It’s really gone.”

  “The Wizards’ Guild didn’t have anything to do with it?”

  She suppressed her annoyance. “Why would the Wizards’ Guild want to interfere with warlocks, Zallin?”

  “I don’t know! I was going to ask what we had done to offend you.”

  “Why did you think it was our doing at all?”

  “Because who else has magic powerful enough to do such a thing? The gods can’t even see us, let alone harm us, and while demons might have the power, who could afford to pay them enough? I suppose it might have been demons, but wizards seemed much more likely.”

  “You assumed it must be some rival school of magic? Why?”

  “Well, who else would want to harm us?”

  Ithinia suppressed a grimace. “Zallin, are you sure you would call it harm?” she said. “You do realize that this means an end to the Calling, as well as warlockry?”

  He waved that aside. “The Calling — if we’re careful, that’s not a problem. I can survive a few nightmares. But without our magic, how are we to live?”

  “Learn an honest trade. Expand the Hegemony’s borders, perhaps — I’m told there is still good land in the northeast that a hard worker can clear and farm. Now that the Calling is gone, there’s no need to avoid the region just south of Aldagmor.”

  “Farm?” Zallin’s expression implied that she had just said something obscene.

  “Or take up carpentry, or smithing,” she suggested.

  He shook his head violently. “No,” he said. “I’m a warlock, not a tradesman! Please, Guildmaster, isn
’t there anything you can do? Isn’t there some way to lure back the source?”

  “I do not know of any, nor would I use it if I did,” Ithinia replied.

  “But Ithinia, think of the city! What will people do with no warlocks? Who will dredge the harbor? Who will repair streets and walls? Who will heal the sick?”

  She turned up an empty palm. “Ethshar managed well enough before the Night of Madness. I’m sure we can manage again now that the madness is gone.”

  “Warlockry isn’t madness!”

  She sighed. “No,” she admitted, “it wasn’t. But it’s gone, and it’s not coming back.”

  “Can’t you find some other source, then?” he pleaded. “Is there no great wizardry you might perform that would restore our power?”

  “Zallin, a sixnight ago you would have claimed that warlockry deserved to be considered the equal of any other school of magic; do you really think one wizard can restore it?”

  “I don’t know!” he wailed. “I don’t understand wizardry, but you people have always claimed to be able to perform miracles, to create entire worlds with some of your spells — how do I know you can’t provide a new power source for us?”

  She met his gaze and said, “I cannot create a new source of power for warlocks.” She did not say she could not provide one; she was all too aware that one already existed, in Lumeth of the Towers. “Zallin, have you noticed that I have not called you chairman?”

  “I...no. I don’t understand.”

  “There are no more warlocks in Ethshar, Zallin. There is no more Council of Warlocks for you to chair. Accept it.”

  He straightened and threw back his shoulders. “I do not accept that, Guildmaster! I will never accept it!”

  “You should. But even if you refuse to acknowledge that the Council is no more, it is unclear whether you are still its chairman.”

  “What?” He looked shocked.

  “Zallin, the departure of the Source did not merely put an end to warlockry; before it left, it released all the warlocks it had Called. All of them, back to the Night of Madness, magically preserved just as they were when they reached Aldagmor. It’s estimated to be at least fifteen thousand people, and most of them are on their way here right now.”

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “All the Called warlocks are coming back, Zallin. And that includes Hanner, the original Chairman of the Council of Warlocks. If I were to recognize anyone as chairman, it would be Hanner, not you.”

  “But he’s... They aren’t dead?”

  “They aren’t dead. Oh, a few were killed in the confusion, but most of them are alive and well.”

  “But that...but...”

  Ithinia could almost see him trying to grasp that, and trying to decide whether it was good or bad. Obviously, he knew he should think it was a good thing that thousands of his elders had not died, as he had always assumed, but at the same time, he liked being the city’s senior warlock, and did not want to be shoved aside.

  And if she remembered correctly, he and Hanner had never much liked each other.

  After a moment, he reached a conclusion.

  “You can’t restore my magic?”

  “I cannot.”

  “Can any wizard?”

  “Not that I know of, but we’re a secretive lot. I can’t say for certain that there is no spell that would serve your purpose, only that if there is, I never heard of it.”

  “Then I am sorry to have troubled you, Guildmaster.” He bowed. “I will be going.”

  “As you please,” she said with a nod. She stepped aside, and heard Obdur opening the front door as she did. She watched as Zallin marched out, clearly trying to look haughty, but only managing petulant.

  Obdur closed the door behind him, and Ithinia stared at it for a moment.

  There was a man who would be very happy indeed if Vond did start training warlocks to use the power of the Lumeth towers. She would have to make sure that he would never have the opportunity to ask Vond’s assistance.

  “Obdur,” she said, “go fetch the gargoyles; I have messages to send.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Someone had been killed and partially eaten during the night. Several people insisted it must have been a dragon, probably one of Aldagon’s spawn, but after looking at the remains, Hanner didn’t believe it.

  “Look at the tracks,” he said, trying to ignore the fact that he could see his own breath and could barely keep from shivering. He didn’t want to think about the cold and what it might do. “Those don’t look like dragon’s claws to me. There are no scorch marks, and no one saw any light or heard anything; wouldn’t a dragon use fire?”

  “They don’t all breathe fire,” someone said.

  If true, that was news to Hanner, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “But the tracks! No dragon would leave tracks like that.”

  No one could argue with that; the tracks were like nothing any of them had ever seen before, diagonal grooves very closely spaced that looked nothing at all like the talon-marks a dragon would leave.

  The dead man — no one seemed to know him — had been sleeping well away from his nearest neighbors; he had probably just wanted a little peace and quiet, away from the noise and smell of so many people. That had apparently been his undoing. His isolation meant, though, that the ground where he had died had not been trampled by a hundred feet; the marks in the soft ground were unusually clear.

  Clear, but very strange indeed.

  “It’s probably a mizagar,” someone murmured, not far from Hanner’s right shoulder. He turned to see a woman a little older than himself staring down at the muddy mess.

  “A what?”

  “A mizagar,” the woman repeated. Hanner didn’t recognize her, and her attire suggested that she had been Called on the Night of Madness — she wore a green flannel nightgown that was unfashionable even when Hanner was a boy.

  “What’s a mizagar?” he asked.

  The woman looked around nervously. “They’re...an old story,” she said. She spoke Ethsharitic with a strong Sardironese accent. “My grandfather told me about them when I was a little girl. They’re supposed to be leftovers from the Great War, creatures that the Northerners turned loose in areas where they didn’t want to bother putting soldiers or magicians. They’re as big as a horse in the body, but with short, thick legs and much larger heads. Their hide is leathery and hairless and completely black, so black they’re practically invisible at night, and they move low to the ground, to make them even harder to spot and so they can move more silently. They’re very, very fast. Humans are their preferred food, but they can live on other things for as long as necessary. They don’t breed, but they don’t age, either — if there’s one around here, it’s more than two hundred years old. They won’t go near houses, because the Northerners didn’t want them to attack outposts, but no one in Aldagmor would ever sleep out in the fields or woods for fear of them.”

  “You’re from Aldagmor?”

  She nodded.

  “I know her,” Rayel Roggit’s son volunteered. “This is Fanria the Clever; she lived a mile east of us.”

  Hanner said, “Fanria?” He had never heard the name Fanria before, but he supposed Ethshar and Sardiron might have different naming customs.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m Fanria.”

  “You think these things might be around here?”

  “We’re out in the wilderness here,” she said. “Even before that thing fell out of the sky, no one lived here. It’s just the sort of place the old stories say they live.”

  “Do they ever attack by daylight?”

  She glanced around uneasily, and saw Rayel smiling encouragingly at her. “I only know my grandfather’s stories,” she said.

  “Well, what did your grandfather say about that?”

  “He said...they wouldn’t bother a large group by daylight, but if anyone wandered off alone, a hungry mizagar might try to pick him off. And at night — well, I think this was done by
a mizagar.” She gestured toward the bloody remains and churned-up mud.

  Hanner nodded. “Then we won’t give them any more targets; from now on, everyone stays together, and we’ll post guards at night.”

  “We should burn the body,” Sensella said.

  “I’ll leave that to the magicians,” Hanner said. “The rest of us should get moving. The sooner we get to civilization, away from dragons and mizagars and whatever else is out here, the better.”

  There was a muttered chorus of agreement, and much of the crowd began turning southward, picking up any belongings they might have put down and starting to walk.

  Of course, most of them had no belongings other than the clothes they wore and the magical provisions Piskor had given them. Still, Hanner thought as he watched them, at least they were alive. While several people were limping, or shivering, the mizagar’s victim had been the night’s only known fatality. It could have been far worse.

  Hanner turned south himself just as the shouting started.

  “Look! Look!” someone cried.

  “We’re saved!”

  “Run!”

  “The wizards have come!”

  “They’re here to rescue us!”

  “They’ll kill us all!”

  Hanner’s gaze followed some of the pointing fingers, and saw the dark little shape in the southern sky, drawing rapidly nearer. It took him a moment to identify it, and he marveled at how sharp some people’s eyes must be, to have recognized it so quickly. It was a flying carpet, and three people were seated on it. The wizards had found them.

  “They won’t hurt us!” Hanner shouted. “They sent me a dream last night; they’re here to help!”

  His words did not carry well over the general racket, but apparently the people saying they should run were a small minority; most of the crowd was cheering and waving.

  The carpet descended until it hung a dozen feet above the ground, above the heads of the milling throng, about a hundred yards southwest of Hanner’s own location; several of the people beneath it were stretching their arms upward, trying to touch it. Some of them were even leaping up toward it, though so far as Hanner could tell none of the outstretched fingers managed to reach the carpet.