The Vondish Ambassador loe-10

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  The room on Through Street — well, any whore he brought there would probably come from Camptown rather than Spicetown, but otherwise, it was much the same. The sights and smells outside the window might be less familiar, but that didn’t really matter.

  Eventually he wanted a place of his own, a place he could settle in for good, but this wasn’t it, and neither was the house in Allston. The ambassador’s money, though, would bring him that much closer to someday finding it.

  He closed the window, hoisted the duffel onto his shoulder, picked up the satchel, and left, closing the door behind him for one last time, and dropping the key in the landlady’s waiting palm.

  He trudged out of the alley, then across Canal Square and up Twixt Street. He turned left on Olive Street and made his way west a few hundred yards. There he paused, looking at the house his parents shared with two other families.

  He had grown up here, with his two younger sisters, and with the seven kids of the other two families, though most of them had moved out now. The ten of them had all played together as children, and had been almost like a single family, instead of three. When he had been younger everyone took it for granted that he would eventually marry Azradelle the Tomboy, from upstairs, officially merging two of the three.

  It hadn’t happened, and no one still called her that. Now she was Azradelle of Shiphaven, married to Pergren the Pilot, and the mother of twins. They lived in a flat on Cinnamon Street, over in Spicetown, and had for a couple of years.

  His behavior at their wedding was one reason he had moved out and found himself the room behind Canal Square — living in the same house as Azradelle’s parents and younger siblings had been too uncomfortable after his spiteful drunken speech and... well, and other things.

  It had been foolish, really; he hadn’t wanted to marry Azradelle himself, and Pergren was a nice enough fellow, but somehow he hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut. He had felt cheated when she chose Pergren. It was completely unreasonable, and he knew that, he had known it at the time, but all those years of taking her for granted, combined with too much oushka, had somehow made him lose interest in being reasonable.

  It was probably just as well Lar didn’t know about that little episode.

  He shifted the duffel, then climbed the stoop and knocked on the front door.

  His father would probably be working over at the warehouse, and his mother was probably in the courtyard out back, but he was hoping one of his sisters would be within earshot. Sharra was in and out, despite her new husband, and Imirin had moved back after completing her apprenticeship.

  Sure enough, the door opened, and Imirin peered out.

  “Emmis!” she shrieked. “And you have luggage — are you coming home to stay?”

  “No, no,” he said. “I’m moving to Allston, and I wanted to let everyone know where I’ll be living. Who’s here?”

  “Just me in the house. Mother’s out back. Allston? What are you doing in Allston? There aren’t any docks there!”

  “Let me come in and put these things down, and I’ll explain.”

  Imirin jumped aside. “Come in, come in!”

  A few minutes later he was in the courtyard, explaining his new job to his sister, his mother, and half a dozen of the neighbors.

  “Is he a warlock?” Klurйa the Seamstress from next door wanted to know. “I heard that everyone in Vond is a warlock.”

  “No, he’s not a warlock,” Emmis assured her. “I don’t think he’s any kind of magician, and I know he’s not a warlock. He says there aren’t any warlocks in the empire any more.”

  The question got him thinking, though — might Lar be a magician of some sort? He hadn’t said so, had shown no sign of magic, but that didn’t necessarily mean much, given his secrecy on certain subjects. Emmis was fairly sure the Lumethans were using magic of one variety or another, so why wouldn’t the people of Vond? He would ask Lar about that when he got back to the house.

  When at last he had answered everyone’s questions about his new job, his new home, and his new employer — most of the answers were variations on, “I don’t know yet” — the women took turns bringing him up to date on the local gossip. Imirin was trying to raise enough money to open her own shop, but so far was making do with operating a small still in the basement and selling her products to the local inns; Sharra was still furnishing her new home and living on her dowry and her husband Radler’s earnings. Azradelle was expecting another child in a few months, her brother Kelder was keeping company with a merchant’s daughter from Westgate, their sister Irith was still apprenticed to the old sailmaker on Shipwright Street but not happy about it, and so on.

  Imirin insisted on giving him a sample of her latest batch, which seemed to make some of the neighbors nervous; presumably they remembered what a few cups of oushka had done to him at Pergren and Azradelle’s wedding. Emmis limited himself to drinking perhaps half the small sample, just so no one would worry.

  He had to admit that it was excellent oushka. Imirin’s master had taught her well.

  “Imirin the Distiller,” their mother said proudly. “Doesn’t that sound fine?”

  Emmis agreed that it did, and carefully didn’t mention any of the cognomens his youngest sister had had as a girl, before she lost her stammer and baby fat.

  Finally Emmis was able to pry himself free, collect his baggage, and depart, making his way around to the west, then down Captain Street to Shiphaven Market, and along Commission Street to the Crooked Candle.

  He stepped inside, and was immediately spotted.

  “There you are!” Annis cried. “Come here, Emmis, and talk to me!” She pulled out a chair.

  She was seated alone at a table in the back corner, facing the door. There was no sign of the Lumethans.

  He hesitated. He had come here to see her, but he had not been prepared for quite so loud and enthusiastic a greeting. Gita the tavern wench was watching from the kitchen door, Annis’ shout having caught her attention.

  Somehow, Emmis had expected spies to behave with a little more circumspection. Still, this was why he had come, to talk to the foreigners. He crossed the room, and settled into the chair Annis had indicated, lowering his two bags to the floor by his feet.

  Annis smiled at him. “So you’ve come to tell me what the Vondishman is up to?” she asked.

  “Something like that,” Emmis acknowledged.

  She dismissed it with a wave. “You needn’t bother,” she said. “We already know all about it.”

  Emmis blinked at her. “You do?”

  “Yes, we do. We talked to that warlock, that Ishta, this morning — Hagai took me down there to translate. She told us all about Lar’s grandson.”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  “And we’re agreed on what we’ll have to do. It’s drastic, but we don’t have any choice.”

  Emmis did not like the sound of that at all. “Drastic?”

  “I would say so, yes.” Her smile vanished. “You don’t object, do you? It will save hundreds of lives in the long run. I know he’s paying you, but you don’t owe him any loyalty, really. Not with something like this.”

  “Object to what?” he asked warily.

  Annis stared at him, then looked to either side.

  The inn’s taproom was largely deserted; it was too early for the supper crowd. Emmis and Annis sat at one table, three sailors sat at another at least twenty feet away, and a man in a blue tunic was apparently passed out drunk in one corner. Gita was out of sight, presumably in the kitchen. No one else was visible.

  Still, Annis leaned forward and whispered.

  “Assassination, of course.”

  Chapter Ten

  For a moment Emmis desperately hoped that Annis did not speak Ethsharitic as well as she thought, that she had said the wrong word. There was something very strange about coming here after visiting his family, abruptly going from happy gossip about weddings and babies and jobs and apprenticeships to this foreigner cheerfully talking about assass
ination.

  “You want to kill him?” he asked. “Why?”

  “Because he’s building an army of warlocks!”

  Emmis stared at her in astonishment. “He is?”

  “Yes!” She looked baffled by his surprise. “You were there, you heard him talking to Ishta — he wants to send his grandson to Ethshar to learn warlockry, then bring him back to Vond. And I’m sure it’s not just the one grandson; he probably has a dozen children ready for training. If it were just one, wouldn’t he have brought the boy with him? No, he’s making arrangements for several, we’re sure of it.”

  “Even if he is...” Emmis stopped. Lar wasn’t making arrangements to provide his empire with a dozen warlocks, so why argue about what it would mean if he did?

  “Why else would they want warlocks? They’re going to expand again. They’re probably going to try to conquer all the Small Kingdoms!”

  “I don’t think so,” Emmis said, but he didn’t sound convincing even to himself.

  He was trying to remember what Lar had said about revealing this. Was his real reason for consulting Ishta a secret? He remembered that Lar said these people wouldn’t believe the truth even if they heard it, and Emmis thought that was probably right, but shouldn’t he at least try?

  No, he was fairly sure that Lar had said it was secret.

  “He hasn’t said anything to you about this plan for conquest?”

  “He hasn’t said anything about any plan for conquest!” Emmis replied. “He said the Empire of Vond was big enough as it is, and they aren’t planning to expand any further.”

  “Then he’s lied to you.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, what else would he want these new warlocks for?”

  “I don’t know — building roads, maybe, or healing the sick. What makes you think warlocks are only good for fighting?”

  “Because that’s how the empire used Vond, of course.”

  “I think you mean that’s how Vond created his empire, don’t you?”

  “It’s the same thing. The empire is still there, even if Vond himself isn’t — and you know, we still don’t know where he went, or whether he might come back. Maybe this ambassador is recruiting Vond’s new staff, for when he returns.”

  “He isn’t going to...” Again, Emmis stopped in mid-sentence. He didn’t really know whether Vond might come back someday; no one did. While no warlock had been known to return from Aldagmor at any time in the last twenty-two years, no one knew why, or what was really going on. For all Emmis knew, they might all come home tomorrow.

  But that wasn’t the way he would have bet it.

  “Why do you keep assuming he wants several warlocks? How do you know this isn’t just personal business, trying to find his grandson an apprenticeship?”

  “Even one would be too many! Besides, he treated it as official business. He brought you along. We think it’s clearly part of a war plan.”

  “But isn’t it a tradition in the Small Kingdoms not to use magic in your wars?” he asked.

  “It was before the Great Warlock came along, yes. He ruined that.” The bitterness in her voice startled Emmis. “The empire uses magic.”

  “They did before, yes, but Vond is gone.”

  “Why would that matter? The Imperial Council is his heir. If they didn’t intend to follow his path, why haven’t they broken up the empire, and let the seventeen provinces go back to being seventeen kingdoms?”

  “Well, but that’s hardly the same thing!”

  “That’s what their envoys say, but why should we believe them?”

  “This is ridiculous. One man talked to a warlock about an apprenticeship for his grandson, and you’re convinced it’s the first step in a campaign to conquer the World!”

  “Probably just the Small Kingdoms,” Annis said. “They know they couldn’t fight the Hegemony — you have thousands of magicians here.”

  “There are magicians in the Small Kingdoms!”

  “Some, yes, especially in the north, along the Great Highway — but an army of warlocks could defeat most of them, and the rest would probably flee. Don’t forget, Emmis, we saw what Vond did. He smashed entire armies. He summoned storms out of a calm sky, and built his palace by pulling stone out of the ground with a wave of his hand. A dozen warlocks like that would be enough to defeat Ashthasa and Lumeth in a day, all the Small Kingdoms in a year.”

  “But most warlocks aren’t like that! They hear the Calling before they have that kind of power!”

  “Vond didn’t.”

  Emmis frowned. “So he was a freak...”

  Annis shook her head. “No,” she said. “We think it’s something about Semma that’s different. Warlocks are more powerful there.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Emmis said, but as he spoke he remembered what Lar had asked Kolar. That hum that Vond had heard — was that somehow related to his abnormally powerful magic?

  Was that why the empire really didn’t want any more warlocks?

  “Listen,” he said, “we have hundreds of warlocks here in Ethshar, and they don’t cause any trouble. Why are you so sure they’d be a problem where you live?”

  “You have all the other magicians to keep them under control,” Annis said. “You have the Wizards’ Guild, and the witches and sorcerers and demonologists and the rest. And for that matter, you have the other warlocks; they aren’t all united in a single cause.”

  “So why do you think...”

  “We can’t risk it!” she snapped. “If the nobles of the empire have their own children trained as warlocks, that’s completely different from anything anywhere else!”

  “So you’re going to kill the ambassador? How do you even know that will stop them?”

  “We’re going to kill this ambassador, and anyone else from Vond who tries to talk to warlocks, or to make an alliance with the Hegemony. The empire is quite strong enough without Ethshar’s help.”

  Emmis blinked. “You know, I don’t think the overlord would like that,” he said.

  “Why would he care?”

  “You mean aside from generally not approving of murder? You’re trying to cut off his communication with another country!”

  “But he hasn’t had any communication with the empire — why would he care when that doesn’t change? After all, isn’t he called Azrad the Lazy?”

  Emmis stared at her. “No, he isn’t,” he said. “That was his father. Azrad VI was called ’the Sedentary,’ yes, but he died five years ago. The present overlord is Azrad VII, and he doesn’t have an agreed-upon cognomen yet — my sister Sharra calls him ’Azrad the Hard to Classify.’ But he isn’t lazy.”

  Annis looked distinctly disconcerted at that, but quickly regained her composure. “Still, why would he care what happens to troublemakers from the far side of the Small Kingdoms?”

  “Because they’re trying to talk to him, and he doesn’t like being interrupted!” This didn’t seem real to Emmis, talking like this. He had heard people talking about killing someone on occasion, but it had always been in a fit of anger, over a theft or a woman or some personal wrong, and it had usually been when they were very drunk. He had never heard someone calmly explain that someone was to be killed over politics, as if murder weren’t important. It was hard to believe she was serious.

  If she was serious, though, he would have to do something to stop her.

  “So what sort of assassination are you planning?” he asked.

  “Planning? It’s done. Or happening, anyway. I wouldn’t have told you otherwise — I don’t trust you that much. Neyam hired someone.”

  “What?”

  “Well, yes! Hagai couldn’t do it, he’s a theurgist, and I wouldn’t know how to find an assassin, but Neyam...”

  Emmis leapt to his feet, knocking over his chair. “Where are they?”

  “Where are who?” Annis asked, startled.

  “Neyam and his assassin! I have to stop them!”

  “No, you don’t
,” Annis said. “Sit down. Don’t be silly.”

  “Yes, I do,” Emmis said. “It’s murder! Where are they?”

  “I don’t know. The Lumethans are doing this, it’s not my idea — well, mostly not...”

  Emmis turned away and ran out the door onto Commission Street, where he turned left and headed for Shiphaven Market at a trot. If he had been certain where he was headed he would have run, but he wasn’t sure yet. Should he just go to the house in Allston and warn Lar?

  That assumed it wasn’t already too late. He hoped it wasn’t already too late. He had sat there listening to the Ashthasan madwoman far longer than he should have, he told himself. He should have run to help as soon as she mentioned assassination.

  But it hadn’t seemed real. People didn’t talk openly about such things! Hadn’t she realized that Emmis worked for Lar, that he liked Lar? Did she think that just because he had taken her money, he had no loyalty at all to his employer, not even the basic consideration he would give any human being?

  He couldn’t imagine thinking like that.

  The market was uncrowded this time of day, and he was able to make it through and onto Twixt Street quickly. He picked up his pace; he still didn’t know whether he was heading to Allston or the Wizards’ Quarter, but either way, he would have to cross the Old Merchants’ Quarter and the New City to get there.

  A little belatedly the possibility of recruiting help among friends and family in Shiphaven occurred to him, but he immediately dismissed the idea; there might not be time, and it would just sound so ridiculous to them, running halfway across the city to stop an assassination!

  He broke into a run, even though he knew he couldn’t maintain it all the way to Allston.

  He was almost to Canal Square when he realized he had left all his belongings on the floor of the Crooked Candle. He cursed, but did not slow down.

  He did slow down in Canal Square, though, as the crowds were thicker here. He almost tripped over a small child, brushed awkwardly against a woman, and had to slow to little more than a walk as he squeezed past a clump of people at the south end.