The Vondish Ambassador loe-10

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Indeed it did,” Lord Ildirin said. “Though only after our lovely hostess had cast a sleeping spell on you.”

  Emmis would not have thought of Ithinia as “lovely,” but he supposed Ildirin was being polite — or perhaps his age gave him a different perspective.

  “Is that what she did? I thought it was just the... the end of the first spell.”

  Emmis noticed the phrasing, and guessed that Lar was not confident enough of his Ethsharitic to use the word “petrifaction.” “What was it like?” he asked.

  Lar shuddered. “Everything went black. I was... I couldn’t feel anything at all. The world just faded away. It was as if I was floating in total darkness. But I could hear a little — just a little. I heard you ask if the creature was still here, and I heard Ithinia say that it was, that it wanted its honey and didn’t think I was dead. She said I was made of granite, but I felt as if I wasn’t made of anything.”

  “And then what?” Ildirin asked.

  “And then... I fell asleep. And I woke up as Ahan caught me, just now.” He brushed at his hair nervously, then felt his neck again. “What happened? How long was I... was I?..”

  “Hours,” Ithinia said.

  “It’s a long story,” Emmis added.

  “Well, I wish someone would tell me that story!”

  “Of course you do,” Ildirin said, “And I would be delighted to oblige you.” He settled onto a chair facing Lar. “Have a seat, your Excellency, and I will tell you the entire tale. And then perhaps we can stop imposing on the Guildmaster’s hospitality and take to our beds; I think any further business can wait until another day.”

  “But the Lumethans — have you caught them?”

  “Not as yet, but we do have the man who young Emmis encountered in your home.”

  Lar blinked, and sank into a chair; Ahan stepped back, taking up an unobtrusive position against the wall by the door. “Tell me more,” the Vondishman said.

  “Well, as you are aware, the petrifaction spell worked perfectly...” Ildirin began.

  Emmis sat back in his chair and closed his eyes as he listened.

  It all seemed to be working out, he thought. The magical assassin was gone, the human assassin captured. The Lumethans were still out there, and that man Tithi, but with Lord Ildirin and Guildmaster Ithinia involved, that surely wouldn’t be a problem. Lar was safe, at least for now.

  Poor Zhol was dead, and that was horrible, but Emmis had hardly known him, and a guard’s life was inherently dangerous. One of his killers was caught, and the other almost certainly would be.

  The mysterious source of magical power in Lumeth of the Towers was still unidentified, and there was still the mystery of just what those sorcerous towers were and why wizards were protecting them, but those problems seemed far less immediate.

  Ildirin’s voice was oddly soothing. Emmis was no longer really listening to the words, but just the tone.

  And then he woke up, and opened his eyes, and saw an unfamiliar ceiling above him.

  He was lying in a bed — a good bed, smooth and warm and comforting, just soft enough — and staring up at a gilt-and-plaster ceiling that depicted spiral patterns of golden stars on a gleaming white background.

  Emmis had never seen that ceiling before, he was quite sure. He turned his head.

  The rest of the room was equally unfamiliar. He was in a fair-sized bedchamber decorated in white, red, and gold, lying in a large and luxurious but oddly uncanopied bed, beneath a snowy white sheet and a red satin quilt. Two tables topped with white marble stood on either side; one held a white-and-gold bowl and pitcher.

  This was, Emmis thought, by far the nicest place he had ever woken up in his life, and that was including not just the rented embassy on Through Street, but the bed of that shipowner’s silly daughter on Flood Street — though the company had been better there, as he was quite alone here.

  He must have dozed off in Ithinia’s parlor, while Lord Ildirin had been telling Lar what had happened — or perhaps Ithinia had used her sleep spell on him, though he really doubted any magic was necessary to explain it. Was this room in Ithinia’s house, then? He threw off the covers and sat up, swinging his feet over the side of the bed.

  His boots were gone — or rather, now that he looked, they were on the floor by the bed, rather than on his feet. He was still wearing his own familiar tunic and breeches, though, with traces of Zhol’s blood still smeared on his shoulders, and his socks were still in place. That was reassuring, and fit his theory nicely. He slid off the bed and stood up, then pulled aside the red-and-white draperies and peered out the nearest window.

  Lower Street. He was in Ithinia’s house, and judged the room to be directly over the parlor. For a moment he wondered whether the wizard had somehow lifted him right through the floor, but then he decided that was silly; why would she do that, when she could just have someone carry him up here?

  He looked at the light; the sky was still overcast, making it hard to judge the hour, but it was clearly long past dawn, and probably around midday.

  “Emmis of Shiphaven?”

  Emmis started; he hadn’t heard the door open, but a young woman was peering in at him. “Yes?” he said.

  “The Guildmaster will see you now, or if you prefer, I can bring up some breakfast first.”

  Emmis considered that, then said, “Breakfast would be very welcome, thank you.” After all, he had not eaten since supper the night before, and he had not exactly been resting on silken cushions all night. Food sounded like a wonderful idea, and this would give him time to compose his thoughts.

  The door closed.

  Emmis found the chamberpot under the bed and used it, then pulled his boots back on. He was just taking another look out the window when someone knocked on the door.

  He opened it to find the girl had returned with a tray; she pushed past him and set it on the unoccupied bedside table, then curtseyed and left, closing the door behind her before he could think of a single thing to say.

  The tray held beer, bread, and sardines — not his usual breakfast, but satisfying enough. A napkin was provided, as well. He ate enthusiastically; when he had finished he wiped his mouth and hands, and was trying to decide whether he should wait or find his own way downstairs when another knock sounded.

  He opened the door, expecting to see the serving girl again, but instead found Ithinia standing there. He quickly adjusted his stance and bowed.

  “Guildmaster,” he said. “I’m honored.”

  “You have no idea,” she said wryly, stepping into the room. “I don’t even let my own servants sleep in my house. Now, you said you wished to speak to me in private?”

  “Yes.” Before he could say anything else, though, the serving girl appeared behind Ithinia. She slipped past her mistress to collect the breakfast tray.

  Emmis and Ithinia stood silently while she bustled out, closing the door behind her.

  “I’m surprised you use human servants,” Emmis remarked. “She is human, isn’t she?”

  “She is,” Ithinia said. “Her name is Irith the Brisk, and she’s from Fishertown. I could create magical servants, of course, and I do have a few — you may have noticed my gargoyles, I’m rather proud of them. But for household tasks, I’ve generally found hiring ordinary people more convenient. They’re better at understanding what’s needed, they aren’t prone to odd restrictions in what they can do or where they can go, and they don’t make guests nervous. Now, your business?”

  “Are Lar and Lord Ildirin still here?”

  “They left long ago, taking their guards living and dead with them, not an hour after you fell asleep, though they’re both expected to return this afternoon. I had plenty of time to talk to Lord Ildirin last night, while you were out dodging assassins and the ambassador was petrified, but there are still several matters to be settled and spells to be performed.”

  That disturbed Emmis. While it wasn’t part of his official duties, he felt that his job included protecti
ng Lar, and he couldn’t very well do that if the ambassador left him sleeping here while he went roaming the streets in the middle of the night. “Why didn’t they wake me?”

  “I think they wanted to speak privately with one another. And I allowed it — encouraged it, actually — because you wanted to speak privately with me. Which you are doing now, though to very little purpose as yet.”

  “I’m sorry,” Emmis said. “It’s something I heard from a theurgist yesterday.” He blinked in surprise at his own words — had it really just been yesterday that he spoke to Corinal?

  “Oh?”

  “Guildmaster, why have wizards put protective spells on the towers in Lumeth? The theurgist said there were several very powerful protections on them, but the towers themselves are sorcerous in nature, not any sort of wizardry.”

  Ithinia froze, staring at him. Then she demanded, “What do you know about the towers?”

  “I... not much, just what the theurgist told me. There are three of them, and each one is a sorcerer’s talisman hundreds of feet high...”

  “Why was this theurgist telling you about them in the first place?” Ithinia snapped, interrupting him.

  “Well, I asked. He consulted the goddess Unniel for me...”

  “Why did you ask?”

  “Because... I can’t tell you.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “I swore I wouldn’t.”

  That was not literally true; he had merely accepted that Lar would have him killed if he revealed too much. Ithinia did not look as if she was interested in explanations at the moment, though.

  “You swore.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t hesitate; it was only after the word had left his mouth that he found himself wondering whether he was absolutely sure that wizards couldn’t always tell truth from falsehood the way witches could.

  “Oaths have power, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “That was why the assassin lingered after its attempt had failed — your oath gave it the power to stay.”

  “I know.”

  “You need to be more careful what oaths you swear and what vows you make, Emmis of Shiphaven.”

  “Honestly, I don’t swear them lightly, Guildmaster.”

  “So you swore not to reveal something, and that something led you to ask a theurgist about the Lumeth towers. Didn’t he want to know why you were asking?”

  “Not as long as I paid him, no. And I asked him a lot of questions; I don’t think that one stood out particularly.”

  “But he told you that the Wizards’ Guild has been warding the Lumeth towers for centuries.”

  Emmis blinked. “No. He told me wizards were protecting the towers. He didn’t mention the Guild or how long it had been going on.”

  “He told you the towers were sorcerous, though.”

  “Yes. Which just seems... I mean, talismans hundreds of feet high? Holding back poisons?”

  “He told you that?”

  “Yes. And that they’re guarded by wizards’ spells, powerful ones. And I thought that since you’re a Guildmaster, you might know why they’re guarded that way.”

  “I do — but why do you care? I know the ambassador is concerned about a possible war between Vond and Lumeth, but what does that have to do with you, or with the towers?”

  “Well, because... I can’t tell you all of it.”

  “What can you tell me?”

  Emmis grimaced; he knew he should have been ready for this interrogation, that it hadn’t been realistic to think Ithinia would answer his questions without asking her own, but he wasn’t ready. He was making it up as he went along.

  “I think... I’m not sure,” he said, “but I think someone may be planning to destroy the towers, and I wanted to know just how much trouble that would cause.”

  “Destroy them?”

  “Yes. If they can.”

  “They probably can’t, but still — who is this? Who is insane enough to attempt anything like that?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Young man, you are being extremely annoying.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then sighed.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you what I can, and when I’m done, you tell me as much as you can. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Emmis said, relieved. “That’s perfect.”

  “Oh, it’s anything but perfect, but it will have to do. Sit down; this may take awhile.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Emmis sat on the bed; Ithinia took the room’s only chair.

  “At the dawn of time,” she began, “the universe, unable to contain so many opposed forces in its original compact form, tore itself in half. One piece became Heaven, home of the gods, the realm of light and...”

  “I know this,” Emmis interrupted. “The gods in Heaven, demons in the Nethervoid, and the leftover bits in between formed the World. What does this have to do with Lumeth?”

  “As we wizards tell the story, this middle realm wasn’t just left over; it was where the gods and demons collected the impurities they cast out of their own realms. All the good that had been in the Nethervoid was put here, and all the evil that had been in Heaven. Gods and demons watched as it all combined to form a new place, and were amazed to see it was possible for something to exist that was such a blending of light and dark, of good and evil — after all, hadn’t the universe itself just ripped apart because it couldn’t hold both? But this new creation didn’t show any sign of repeating that.”

  “So they wanted to see what else it could do.”

  “And they created people,” Emmis said. “Yes, I know. I learned all this when I was a baby.”

  Ithinia calmly continued, “But the middle realm was such a mess, such a disorderly collection of cast-offs, that nothing could live in it.”

  Emmis had been going to say more, but he stopped and closed his mouth. This wasn’t part of the traditional creation story.

  “So the gods and demons used all the forces at their disposal to make it habitable — or at least make the part of it we call the World habitable. We don’t know how much they left a poisonous wasteland, but they raised up an immense plateau in the middle, where they divided land from water and cleansed the air above. And they did this using all the different powers that we now call magic — the power of the gods made the sun and set the cycles of days and years in motion, and the power of the demons made decay and death so that the World wouldn’t ever be overwhelmed by its inhabitants. They used the chaos outside the universe to make life — we call that kind of power wizardry. They used witchcraft and dance and song and all the other magics to get everything just as they wanted it.”

  “Warlockry, too?” Emmis asked.

  “No. Warlockry didn’t exist; it’s new. Which is why we weren’t sure at first it was really a kind of magic at all, when it appeared twenty-two years ago. It must have come from somewhere beyond the universe, somewhere in the chaos.”

  “Oh.”

  “So no, they didn’t use warlockry. But they did use sorcery. Sorcery draws on order the same way that wizardry draws on chaos, so the gods and demons used both, to keep a balance. They used sorcery to make air that could be breathed. The original gases that had covered the World were poisonous fumes; I’m told that if you go to the edge of the World and look over, you can still see them covering the wastelands below. They’re said to be greenish-yellow and very unpleasant.”

  Emmis blinked. He had never heard of anything at all beyond the edge of the World.

  “The thing about sorcery,” Ithinia said, “is that it uses talismans. That’s inherent in it; the power it uses, a force the sorcerers call gaja, must have a physical core, or it dissipates and stops doing whatever magic it’s supposed to be doing.”

  “And the towers in Lumeth...”

  “Are the talismans the gods and demons created more than five thousand years ago to make the World’s air breathable.”

/>   Emmis stared at her for a long moment, then said, “Oh.”

  “And the Wizards’ Guild has been guarding them for as long as the Guild has existed, to make sure that nobody is ever stupid enough to damage them. We like being able to breathe.”

  “Oh,” Emmis said again.

  “So now, if you don’t mind, just who is being stupid enough to risk sucking the air from the entire World and leaving it all a poisoned wasteland?”

  “I can’t tell you,” he said.

  She glared at him. “You do understand that if they’re destroyed, the air will be deadly poison here in Ethshar, don’t you? It won’t just affect the Small Kingdoms.”

  “Yes, I understand that. I’m trying to think what I can tell you.”

  “You’re working for the Vondish ambassador — is it Vond that’s planning to destroy the towers?”

  “Vond went off to Aldagmor years ago.”

  “Not the warlock, the empire.”

  Emmis hesitated.

  “It is, then,” Ithinia said, disgusted. “Why?”

  “Well, I don’t know for certain that they’re going to try. I’m sure you could convince them not to.”

  “Why would they even consider doing something so insane? And how do you know about it?”

  “They... I’m not saying it’s the empire, all right? I never said that. But the people I’m talking about know there’s a source of magical power in Lumeth of the Towers and they want to destroy it so it can’t be used against them, and I think the source they’re looking for is the towers.”

  “You think?”

  Emmis sighed. “Yes. I was... a wizard was hired to identify the source, and said he couldn’t, because there’s magic interfering, so I asked a theurgist to tell me everything in Lumeth that had protective spells on it, because I thought that would narrow it down, and he told me that there are protective spells on their government palace, and on a tunnel the Cult of Demerchan uses, and on a few personal things like spell books, but most of all on the towers. They’ve got a lot of protective spells on them. So maybe this magic source is in the Demerchan tunnel, or in the palace, but I’d expect to find protective spells on those anyway, and it seems more likely that the mysterious power source is these gigantic sorcerous talismans. Which would explain why the source has been so hard to identify.”