The Vondish Ambassador

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  "That's the place?" the guardsman asked.

  "Yes," Emmis said.

  "Show me what happened."

  Emmis nodded. He borrowed a torch from one of the neighbors, since of course no one had lit any candles, and led the soldier inside.

  "I was right here when they came at me," he said, pointing. "I slammed the door behind me, and ducked, and the man's stick hit the wall..."

  He held up the torch, illuminating a small gash in the plaster of the wall, right at head-height.

  "Then I ran into him, and got up and ran out the back, and around through the alley, and then I went to find Lar."

  The guard looked at the damaged plaster, then at the floor. He bent down and picked up a black wooden cylinder with a silver cap on one end; it was split lengthwise on one side, a narrow crack that was still fresh, judging by the color of the wood. "What's this?"

  "That's off his walking stick," Emmis said. "It hid the blade on the end. It must have come off when it hit the wall."

  "He didn't retrieve it? Sloppy."

  Emmis turned up an empty palm.

  Just then there were shouts from the street; Emmis and the guardsman turned and peered out the door.

  Two more guards had just arrived, accompanying one of the neighbors, a woman Emmis vaguely recognized from the courtyard. Lar and the landlord were going to greet them.

  "Well," the soldier from Games Street said. "We're all here now, I'd say. Shall we have everyone in for a cup of tea?"

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was almost midnight by the time the last question had been answered and the last visitor herded out the door. The three soldiers had all read Lar's credentials with interest, and shown him great respect thereafter. Lar had declined their offer to post a guard overnight, on the grounds that no one would be stupid enough to try again after all this fuss, but he had closed the shutters very firmly, and checked the locks on the doors very carefully. He had also unpacked his sword from the bottom of a trunk, and inspected it carefully before sheathing it and hanging the scabbard on his belt.

  Emmis had been interested to see that this was not a fancy nobleman's sword intended for display; it was a serious, workmanlike weapon, with a blade of smooth gray steel and a simple black leather grip.

  Finally everything was secured, leaving only Lar and Emmis in the house, looking at one another.

  "I'm going to bed," Lar said.

  "What about the protocol?"

  "It will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm exhausted."

  "And what happened in the Wizards' Quarter today? Did Kolar give you your answer?"

  "That can wait until tomorrow, too. Good night, Emmis."

  "Good night, sir."

  He watched as the ambassador shuffled wearily to his room, entered, and closed the door behind himself. Then he stood in the hallway by the head of the stairs, listening to the faint sounds of the city outside – even at this hour, it was not entirely silent.

  This was his city, even if it wasn't Shiphaven. This was still Ethshar of the Spices. People here did not casually hire assassins to kill their enemies, and then admit it to strangers. What kind of place was Lumeth, or Ashthasa, that those foreigners would even consider assassinating someone who had done them no harm? What kind of people were they, that Annis would admit her part in this crime to him, and apparently expect him to do nothing about it?

  Emmis wasn't a fool, and he didn't consider himself particularly naive. He knew that people sometimes murdered each other in Ethshar. He had seen a few of them hanged for it. He knew that thieves sometimes stabbed people to death in dark alleys, that burglars sometimes killed victims who woke up at the wrong time, that the poor homeless beggars in the Hundred Foot Field sometimes killed one another over nothing, that drunken brawls sometimes ended in a death or two, that feuding magicians sometimes went too far, that even lovers' quarrels could turn lethal.

  But to hire a team of killers because someone talked about apprenticing his grandson to a warlock – that was insane.

  At least he knew he hadn't imagined it – the neighbors had seen his attackers, and there was the mark on the wall, and the broken cap from the sword-stick. The guards had believed him. They took word back to their superiors at the Palace and in Camptown. They would look for Annis and the Lumethans, and when they found them they would see to it that the foreigners didn't try anything like this again.

  And it might help get Lar his appointment with the overlord. This incident would demonstrate that the ambassador was someone important enough to worry about.

  He still hadn't written that protocol, of course.

  He would write it tomorrow. Emmis frowned slightly; what would he do, while Lar was writing that thing? Did he need to stay around, to correct Lar's Ethsharitic? The ambassador usually seemed capable enough with the language.

  Emmis paused. Did he need to stay around at all? He hadn't signed on to fight off assassins. He could just quit, and go back to Shiphaven, and work on the docks. He could find another room somewhere.

  But all his belongings were lost; landlords would look on that with great suspicion. He could get his sisters and neighbors to vouch for him, but still, it wouldn't look good.

  Besides, what would happen to Lar if he did that? And the Vondishman paid better than any shipowner or merchant who had ever hired Emmis.

  And Emmis wanted to know what in the World was going on, with these magicians and assassins and mysteries!

  He would stay, he decided. At least for now.

  And with that settled, he finally went to bed, leaving his clothes carefully draped across the furniture to air out, since he had no others to wear.

  The world looked very different in the morning sun, after a night's rest, and Emmis was almost cheerful as he dressed. His tunic hardly smelled at all, despite the sweat-stains, but he still told himself he would have to wash it soon, and he would want to buy another at the first opportunity. Tailor Street was just three blocks to the east; he had never bought anything there, but earning ten bits a day in silver, he could afford it now.

  He ambled down to the kitchens, seeing no sign that the ambassador was out of bed yet, and set about assembling a suitable breakfast. He had the fire hot and had just put the teakettle on when Lar appeared in the doorway.

  "What do we have?" he asked.

  "Boiled ham," Emmis replied. "Or sardines, if you prefer."

  "Ham will do fine."

  A few minutes later they were sitting in the dining room with mugs of tea and plates of ham; there were still no chairs in the kitchen.

  "Good tea," Lar remarked. "Much better than the herbal stuff Sella makes."

  "What happened in the Wizards' Quarter yesterday?" Emmis asked. "Did you get your question answered?"

  Lar shook his head. "No. Kolar's spell just made a... a nothing, a mess."

  "Swirls, he called it. But what about Imrinira?"

  Lar set down his mug and turned up a palm. "She couldn't help much," he said. "She tried a few things. Mostly the Spell of the Eighth Sphere."

  "What's that do?"

  "It makes runes appear in a black crystal sphere," Lar said. "But it can only answer yes-or-no questions, and not all of those. It did tell us that strong magic was interfering with Fendel's Divination, that it wasn't anything Kolar did wrong, but any time we tried to ask it a question about... about the hum itself, rather than about Kolar's spell, the reply was so hazy we couldn't read it. The magic was interfering again."

  "Ah."

  "So we went to see Imrinira's friend Zindré, to see whether witchcraft might work where wizardry didn't. They have an agreement – when Imrinira needs witchcraft she goes to Zindré, and when Zindré needs wizardry she goes to Imrinira. But Zindré couldn't do anything with this, so she took us to Sella, who was expecting us. She said that witchcraft wasn't going to help very much, but that other magicians could answer all my questions, and some of them were wizards – I just had to ask the right people the right questions. But then she c
alled her apprentice in and whispered to her, and said that you would be along in a moment, and then you were, and you know the rest."

  "Oh." Emmis considered this for a moment. "So what did Imrinira say, when Sella said that magicians could answer your questions?"

  "She said that she couldn't, but that if the interference came from a protective spell of some kind, then the wizard who cast it could probably tell me why it's there."

  "Does it come from a protective spell?"

  "I don't know." Lar picked his mug up again. "I didn't get a chance to ask her about that."

  "So are you going to go back and ask more questions?"

  "Not right away," Lar said. He sipped tea. "I need to think about what questions to ask. And I need to write that protocol."

  Emmis nodded.

  "Besides, my first trip to the Wizards' Quarter got assassins sent to kill me," Lar added. "Who knows what will happen if I keep going back?"

  "What more can happen?" Emmis asked. "They're already trying to kill you."

  "They might do a better job of it."

  "How?"

  "Hire magicians. Or Demerchan."

  "Perhaps you should get some protective spells of your own," Emmis suggested. "Talk to a theurgist about that door shrine – it might be useful."

  "It might. But first I need to write my letter to Lord Ildirin."

  Emmis sighed. "Please yourself. I suppose I could see about buying some decent furniture while you do that, and I do need more clothes."

  "You left yours at that inn in Shiphaven?"

  "Yes. So I'm sure they're long gone."

  "Not necessarily. Might the innkeeper have kept them for you?"

  Emmis frowned. "I doubt it," he said.

  "I think you should go back and ask. I'd be interested in knowing just how quickly Annis disappeared after you ran out of there, too."

  "I still can't believe she told me they were going to assassinate you!"

  "Oh, they think everyone in Ethshar is a cold-hearted mercenary. I'm almost surprised she didn't try to hire you to kill me."

  Emmis's mouth opened, then closed again.

  "Really, people in the Small Kingdoms have no idea how a place like Ethshar can exist," Lar said. "It's too big for them to comprehend – the stories say there are a million people in Ethshar of the Spices alone! I don't think there's a one of the Small Kingdoms with more than thirty thousand people in it; the Empire of Vond might have a quarter of a million, at most. And there's all the magic here, and three overlords instead of a king or council..."

  "People mind their own business," Emmis said. "It all works out."

  "Yes, exactly! People mind their own business, so Annis thought you wouldn't care about me. I'm not one of your countrymen."

  "But you're my business," Emmis said. "You pay me. You live here."

  "But I have no family here, no connections. You haven't sworn fealty to me, we don't serve the same king."

  Emmis stared at him, baffled. "So what?"

  "You see? We think differently in the Small Kingdoms!"

  "But you said she thought I wouldn't mind because I'm Ethsharitic!"

  "Yes. She doesn't understand Ethshar. She sees that you people here don't have the family ties and hereditary positions and binding oaths that connect people in the Small Kingdoms, so she thinks you don't have any connections. I know better – you have your neighbors and your friends and your family and the people you do business with, masters and journeymen and apprentices are all linked, there are the guilds and districts, and when all is said and done you're all Ethsharites together. You have far more connections than we do; they just aren't as strong or as obvious, but they're strong enough. That guardsman we brought here last night – he came with us just because you asked. You aren't a nobleman, or any of his kin, or a member of the guard yourself, you're just an Ethsharite, and that was enough."

  "Well, yes, of course," Emmis said. "That's their job, to guard the city and keep the peace."

  "In Ashthasa, where Annis is from, a soldier's job is to do as he's told by the prince and his officers," Lar explained. "Helping out an ordinary citizen isn't something he does without orders."

  "Barbarians," Emmis muttered under his breath.

  Lar heard him, and smiled.

  "They think you are barbarians, with your messy, disorganized way of doing things and your lack of a proper hereditary hierarchy."

  "'They'? Not 'we'?"

  "Oh, I know better than that. I might have never set foot in Ethshar a sixnight ago, but I'm not stupid. I've talked to Lord Sterren, and other travelers, and I know no place could be as big and rich and powerful as the Hegemony if it was really disorganized and barbaric."

  "But this isn't obvious to everyone?"

  "No, it isn't. You'd be surprised."

  "Barbarians," Emmis said again.

  "Different," Lar said. "And you should go back to the inn and see whether anyone can tell you anything about Annis. Maybe you can find out whether there are any more assassins on their way, or where she found the two you met last night."

  "Why does it matter where she found them?"

  "It's a useful thing to know where one can hire assassins."

  Emmis didn't like that; the clear implication was that Lar might want to hire a few himself. "Who were you thinking of assassinating?" he asked.

  "No one," Lar replied cheerfully. "I just like to know what's possible."

  "I don't work for people who hire assassins."

  "I'm pleased to hear that."

  Emmis glared at his employer. Lar finished his tea.

  "I'll order furniture," Emmis said.

  Lar shook his head. "Visit the inn. Seriously. You might learn something useful. And if your belongings are still there, you'll save yourself a great deal of effort and money."

  "Would they still be there in the Small Kingdoms?"

  "They might be, they might not. It would depend on the inn. Try to be back by early afternoon, to take my papers to the Palace."

  "I can do that," Emmis acknowledged. He started to rise.

  "And while you're doing that, I can go back to the Wizards' Quarter and try to find a good theurgist."

  "About the door shrine?"

  "That, too."

  "About your mysterious hum."

  "Yes."

  "Someday I'd like to know what that's about."

  "So would I – but I know what you mean. Eventually I may tell you."

  "But not today? Not now?"

  Lar studied him thoughtfully for a moment, then said, "All right."

  Emmis sat down again. "You will?"

  "I will. It may help you know what to ask at the inn."

  "I'm listening."

  "You understand that if you tell anyone, I will have you killed? And I won't waste time with street thugs; I'll hire a demonologist."

  Emmis hesitated. "You will?"

  "Yes. If a warlock, any warlock, finds out what the Empire is worried about, there will be deaths, and yours will be one of them."

  Emmis considered that.

  It wasn't fair, really – making it clear just how important and dangerous this was made it irresistible. His curiosity was going to drive him mad if he didn't ask.

  He would just need to be very, very good about keeping his own mouth shut.

  "Go on," he said.

  Lar sighed, and began.

  "Four years ago," he said, "Sterren, Ninth Warlord of Semma, came to Ethshar and hired some magicians to help defend Semma against her neighbors, Ophkar and Ksinallion. King Phenvel of Semma was an idiot, and had managed to antagonize both his bigger, more powerful neighbors at a time when Semma's own army was in terrible shape, and Sterren thought the only way he could survive the coming war was by breaking the tradition against using magic."

  "All right," Emmis said. So far this didn't sound like any great secret.

  "Well, as you might guess, most of Ethshar's magicians weren't interested in going to fight a war at the far end of the
Small Kingdoms, but he found a few, and one of them was a warlock named Vond, who had started to hear the Calling and was desperate to get farther away from Aldagmor."

  Emmis nodded.

  "Semma was so far from Aldagmor that at first Vond wasn't much use. In fact, he was stricken with headaches. He said they were caused by a buzz, or hum, that he heard constantly, that never went away."

  That seemed mildly odd, but not like any great dangerous secret. "So you want to find out why he had headaches?"

  "No, no, no!" Lar waved that absurd notion aside. "You know something about warlocks, yes?"

  "A little."

  "You know that their power comes from a sort of voice they hear in their heads?"

  Emmis frowned. "Well, not exactly a voice..."

  "No, not exactly a voice. Vond called it a whisper, and said that the Calling began when you started to understand what it was saying."

  "Really? I hadn't heard it that way."

  "That's what Lord Sterren told me," Lar said, turning up a palm. "That there was this sort of whispering, muttering voice, or collection of voices, that warlocks drew their power from, and when they drew too much power, the whisper began to gain power over them."

  "It could be," Emmis admitted. "But it isn't really a voice. There are images, aren't there?"

  "I'm no warlock, but I think so, yes. Still, it's like a voice, sort of."

  "Magic," Emmis said, with a wave. "It doesn't have to make sense. So it's a whispering voice that makes images, and that they draw power from. All right."

  "And in Semma, Vond got headaches because of a horrible buzzing in his head that never stopped. Can't you guess what happened?"

  "No." Emmis had an uneasy suspicion where this was going, but he wanted it spelled out.

  "Vond discovered he could draw power from the hum, instead of from the whisper. And he thought he could use all the power he wanted without worrying about the Calling, because the buzz didn't have any words or images in it, it was just this constant flow of energy he could tap into."

  A second source of magic that warlocks could use – that was a secret worth worrying about, Emmis had to admit. But it still didn't seem all that terrible. "But he got Called eventually, didn't he?"