The Vondish Ambassador

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

"Yes, yes. At least for now."

  Ahan bowed slightly, then marched out.

  "Who's Zhol?" Emmis asked.

  "One of the guards at the door," Ildirin replied. "I hope candy will do; the creature may insist on liquid honey. We shall see."

  "I hope so," Lar said. "I must say, I don't like this. The idea that there is an invisible creature lurking here, waiting to kill me, is... is... gharget. Shalbet. I don't know the Ethsharitic."

  "I'm sure it must be, whatever those words mean," Lord Ildirin said. "Still, it could be far worse. You know it's here, and you have the opportunity to stop it, and once stopped, it's over. If your foes had hired a warlock, you would already be dead. Had they been willing to pay their wizard more, and had they the means to ensure you triggered it, they might have used the Rune of the Implacable Stalker, in which case the creature would never give up so long as you lived. I am sure there are other more lethal spells of which I am unaware, as well. And if they had approached a demonologist – well, the options there are plentiful, and all of them quite hideous."

  "You are not comforting," Lar said.

  "But really, my friend, that you are still alive now bodes well," Ildirin insisted.

  "It's still not comforting," Lar retorted. "What if the creature is to kill me when I finish my tea? What if sunset is the time? The shadows I see through the window are getting very long." He looked at his cup, and carefully set it down on the table with half an inch of liquid still undrunk in the bottom. "And even if we stop this one – I hadn't expected them to try again! I don't understand why they think they must kill me. Paying a wizard – the next time maybe it will be a demonologist!"

  "There won't be a 'next time,'" Ildirin said. "At least, not unless they're very quick about it. Because this is a violation of Ethsharitic law, and an affront to the overlord. I had treated the previous attack as an amusement, something I could use to entertain myself, but that was because I had not thought they would try again, and certainly not that they would use magic. Now I know better. They have escalated to magic; we shall return the favor, and we have access to far more powerful magic than anything a few travelers from the Small Kingdoms are likely to possess, or to be able to purchase. If we can deal with this immediate threat, the next step will be to call upon Ethshar's magicians to find and capture those responsible. If they meant to prevent an alliance between the Empire of Vond and the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, they have utterly failed in their purpose; I will be informing my nephew at the first opportunity that it is essential we aid your empire in any way we can."

  "Thank you, my lord," Lar said, visibly somewhat relieved – but only somewhat.

  After all, Emmis thought, the invisible creature, Fendel's Assassin, was still around. "So you can bribe it to go away, and not harm the ambassador?" he asked.

  "No," Ildirin said. "I'm afraid that's not possible. The original spell binds it more strongly than anything we can do. But we can coax it into telling us what it's required to do, and perhaps we can find a way to prevent it."

  "Perhaps?" Lar said, tensing again.

  "Perhaps, yes. There's no certainty to be had here, your Excellency. We will do what we can."

  "But... but..." Lar struggled to find the words to express his dismay, and failed.

  Then Ahan reappeared in the doorway, holding out a handful of golden lumps. "My lord?"

  "Ah, Ahan!" Lord Ildirin said. "Hold those out, just as you have them, but be ready to close your fist instantly."

  Ahan obeyed, looking about nervously.

  "Now, creature of magic, wizard's weapon, if you hear me – speak, answer our questions, and you shall have the honey!"

  "Honey!" a strange voice said, a low, slow, hissing, rumbling voice unlike anything Emmis had ever heard before. He still could not see the creature, but the voice seemed to be coming from directly behind Lar. The ambassador started in his chair at the sound of it, and whirled around, peering desperately about.

  He saw nothing.

  "Tell us, then, what your instructions were," Ildirin calmly demanded.

  "Find him, wring his neck as he sleeps." A horrible noise that might have been a tittering laugh followed these words. Emmis's skin crawled.

  "Nothing more than that? Not, perhaps, as he sleeps in his bed?"

  "Wring his neck as he sleeps. Nothing more. Honey?"

  Lord Ildirin did not look entirely satisfied, but he nodded to Ahan. "Give him the honey," he said. "Quickly."

  The guardsman hurried forward, holding out the candies, then stopped in front of Lar's chair, unsure exactly what he should do next.

  The creature answered that for him, as about half the honey drops vanished from his palm, rising a fraction of an inch and then fading into nothingness with a ghastly slurping and crunching; Ahan snatched his hand away, spilling the rest to the floor, and Emmis thought he saw blood on the guard's fingers.

  The candies rattled and bounced on the floor, and then something unseen shoved Ahan aside, Lar's chair jerked the other way, and the honey drops vanished, one by one, from where they had fallen. Each disappearance was followed by an obscene sucking sound.

  Ahan made a wordless noise of pain and unhappiness as he clutched at his hand; Emmis could definitely see blood seeping between the fingers now.

  "Impatient, isn't it?" Ildirin remarked. "Ahan, go see to your hand, and we'll want to have a healer look at it, very soon, to make sure the thing's claws weren't poisoned."

  Lar was twisted in his chair, looking around; it seemed to Emmis he was having a great deal of difficulty with the idea that the monster was really completely invisible.

  "What about the ambassador?" Emmis asked. "I mean, yes, I'm concerned about Ahan's hand, but it's my employer the thing intends to kill!"

  "Well, he doesn't need to worry about a thing so long as he stays awake," Ildirin said. "It has orders to kill him in his sleep. So as long as he's awake, it won't hurt him."

  "It hurt Ahan," Emmis pointed out.

  "Only by accident," Ildirin said. "It had earned its pay, and we weren't fast enough in delivering it."

  "I was...!" Ahan began, then stopped, obviously deciding it wasn't worth the argument.

  "Go tend to your hand," Ildirin told him again.

  "There's clean water in the kitchen," Lar said. "Some of it should still be warm from making the tea."

  "Thank you," Ahan said, and turned. He walked unsteadily out of the room.

  "Maybe I should go with him," Emmis said uncertainly.

  "He's a grown man," Ildirin said. "And a strong one with a good wit. He can manage, I'm sure."

  "But if it's poisoned..."

  "Yes." Ildirin tugged at his beard, then leaned back in his chair. "Creature, we gave you honey," he called at the ceiling. "Is your touch poisonous?"

  "Sharp, oh so very sharp, but not poison," the hideous voice said. "A hand will heal cleanly." After a moment's pause, it added, "More honey?"

  "Alas, we have no more," Ildirin said. "Thank you, though, for your cooperation."

  "No honey?"

  "No honey."

  "Wring his neck as he sleeps." It tittered horribly.

  Lar shuddered.

  "I wouldn't think you'll find it easy to sleep any time soon," Ildirin remarked.

  "But I must sleep eventually!" Lar shouted, his voice cracking.

  A thought popped into Emmis's head, but he caught himself before speaking aloud. The creature was listening, after all.

  "So we'll have to find a way to send this thing away before you do," Ildirin said.

  Emmis could not restrain himself further. "What if he dies first?" he asked.

  Both older men turned to stare at him.

  "What?" Lar said.

  "What if you die before you go to sleep?"

  "I hardly see how that would be an improvement," Lord Ildirin remarked dryly.

  "Creature, what would happen if the ambassador died without going to sleep?" Emmis asked the air.

  "More honey?"


  "I don't have any, but I can fetch some by tomorrow noon," Emmis said.

  "You swear? Honey, for me, by noon?"

  Emmis was uncomfortably aware of how many things might go wrong, how many ways he might be prevented from abiding by his promise, what horrible things the creature might do if he failed to deliver, but he said, "Yes, I swear. My oath on it."

  "Then I tell you, one cannot kill the dead. When he is dead, whether by my hand or not, I am free," the monster's voice said. "Honey, by noon."

  "Emmis, what are you doing?" Lar demanded. "What are you talking about?"

  Emmis ignored him for the moment, and addressed the overlord's uncle. "Lord Ildirin, you said you had powerful magic available. Magic that can turn a man to stone?" He carefully did not add, "And back?"

  Lord Ildirin stared at him for a moment, then smiled.

  Lar, uncomprehending, looked back and forth between them.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ithinia of the Isle, senior Guildmaster in Ethshar of the Spices, was startled by the knock at her window. She looked up to see a gargoyle's familiar face beyond the glass, peering in at her upside-down. "Fang?" she said. "What is it?" She rose and opened the casement, letting the lamplight from her study illuminate the creature's carved gray features. It was hanging down over the eaves, dangling from the roof.

  "You have visitors," the gargoyle said, in a voice like stone grating on stone. "Half a dozen of them are standing in the street, outside your door."

  "At this hour?"

  "Three of them are soldiers."

  Ithinia frowned. "Was the overlord there? Or anyone in wizard's robes?"

  "No, mistress."

  "I haven't heard the bell."

  "They did not ring. I saw them standing there arguing, and I thought you should know."

  "Thank you, Fang. Return to your post, now."

  "Yes, mistress." The stony creature turned and pulled itself up into the darkness, on its way back to its perch on the southeastern corner of the roof.

  Ithinia set aside the letter she had been reading, straightened her robe, and strode out into the corridor – and then the bell did ring. Whoever was at the front door had finally gotten up the nerve to announce themselves.

  She swept down the front stairs, wishing that she had some sort of spell ready to make her entrance a little more impressive, but she hadn't been expecting anyone and hadn't prepared anything. She waved and spoke a certain word, and the front doors swung open.

  As the gargoyle had said, there were half a dozen people standing on her little porch, all of them male – three guardsmen, two strangers, and one familiar face.

  "Lord Ildirin," she said, as she reached the entry. "What brings you to my door at this hour?"

  "Oh, it's not so late as all that, Guildmaster," the old man said. "We've come directly from our supper to ask your aid."

  "I hadn't thought it was a social call," Ithinia said tartly. "Would you care to come in, and introduce your companions?" She stepped aside, and gestured for them to enter.

  "Before I do, Guildmaster, might I ask how many you see in our company?"

  Ithinia stopped and looked the little group over carefully. "I take it 'six' is not the correct answer?"

  "While I cannot be entirely certain, I believe there is a seventh," Ildirin said. "Are there protective spells on your home that would prevent Fendel's Assassin from entering?"

  "There aren't any such spells anywhere," Ithinia snapped. "Not any practical ones, anyway. Do you mean you have one of those things with you? Who is its target?"

  "I am," the stranger in the fancy hat said.

  "I trust you have put your affairs in order?"

  "No," the man said. "I hope it won't be necessary." He spoke with the accent of the southern Small Kingdoms.

  "I take it that's why you've come to see me? You've wasted your time; there's no sure defense against Fendel's Assassin, no simple countercharm."

  "He thinks he has a way to stop it," Lord Ildirin said, nodding at the other stranger, a young man in ordinary Ethsharitic clothing.

  "Does he? What method was it told to use? I assume you've determined that."

  "It's been ordered to strangle him in his sleep," Ildirin said.

  "And I suppose you want a potion to keep him from sleeping? Really, Lord Ildirin, you hardly needed to trouble me for that – and in any case, it won't work, not for long; most wakefulness potions wear off after a sixnight or so.

  "My dear Ithinia, I am not so great a fool as that," Ildirin said, drawing himself up to his full height. "We came here because we need powerful magic quickly, and did not want to waste time asking around the Wizards' Quarter until we found someone capable of it, not when your home was so close at hand. There are also certain political matters that I wish to discuss with you, in your role as a leading representative of the Wizards' Guild in Ethshar of the Spices, once my friend's inconvenience has been dealt with."

  Ithinia had to admit to herself that that sounded interesting. "And what is this magic you seek, then?"

  "Petrifaction. We want you to turn Lar Samber's son to stone."

  The wizard considered that, and a smile spread across her face. "I see," she said. "That's quite clever, really." She nodded at the young man in acknowledgment. "I take it that Bazil's Irreversible Petrifaction is out of the question, though, and you'd insist on Fendel's Superior Petrifaction?"

  "In what way is it superior?" Ildirin asked.

  "It's easily reversible," Ithinia explained.

  "Yes, that would indeed be what we had in mind."

  "The ingredients are simple, and I believe I have them all on hand, but it takes perhaps three hours to prepare," she said. "And the reversal will require me to smash a crystal goblet, so of course I must insist on compensation."

  "Of course! The city's treasuries will cover all costs."

  Ithinia stared at him for a moment, then looked at the foreigner. "Who is this person, then? Lar someone, you said?"

  "Lar Samber's son," Lar said, with a bow and a tip of his hat. "Ambassador plenipotentiary from the Empire of Vond."

  Ithinia frowned. "Vond?"

  "The union of seventeen of the most southerly Small Kingdoms, my lady," Lar said.

  "My title is Guildmaster," Ithinia told him. "And I know where Vond is, and how it came to be."

  Lar bowed a silent reply.

  "I'm not sure I should be preventing his assassination," Ithinia said. "The Wizards' Guild does not meddle in politics without good reason."

  "Oh, but please, Guildmaster!" the young man burst out, startling her. "Lar doesn't mean anyone any harm; it's all a misunderstanding! The Lumethans wouldn't try to kill him if they knew the truth!"

  Ithinia turned and stared at him. "Oh? And why don't they know the truth, then?"

  "Because they won't believe it," Lar said; Ithinia thought he was deliberately not looking at the young man as he spoke. "We told them we mean them no harm. We told them the Empire will not expand. They don't believe us."

  "I really don't care whether they have reason to assassinate him or not," Lord Ildirin interjected. "I won't have them doing it here, in my city!"

  "Ah," Ithinia said, amused. "Your city. Does your nephew know it's yours?"

  "May we come in and discuss this, or are you going to refuse us outright, here and now, and cause me great personal annoyance?"

  "Fine. Come in, then," she said, stepping aside and gesturing toward her little-used parlor.

  Four of the six men trailed in – Ildirin first, then Lar, then the young man whose name she had not yet heard, and finally one of the three guardsmen. The other two soldiers took up posts on either side of the door, facing out toward the street.

  Ithinia waited until the others had entered, then looked at the two remaining. "You don't need to stay there," she said.

  "Lord Ildirin's orders, Guildmaster," one of them replied.

  "Look up," she said, pointing. "I have gargoyles watching over me; what do you think you can d
o that they cannot?"

  "Nothing, Guildmaster, but I have my orders."

  Ithinia shook her head. "Foolishness," she said. "This is all foolishness." She closed the door and followed her guests into the parlor.

  All the men but the young one had all taken seats; Ithinia indicated a chair for him, as well, but remained standing herself.

  "Now," she said, "let me make sure I have this right. You want me to turn this Vondishman to stone to protect him from Fendel's Assassin. You've spoken with the killer?"

  The men exchanged glances; the young man, who was now perched on the edge of a chair, said, "That's right. Ahan gave it honey drops, and it answered questions."

  "Honey drops?" She blinked. "Interesting; I thought it required the pure substance. Honey drops contain other things, do they not? Or are they merely cooked-down honey?"

  The men exchanged glances. "I... I don't know, Guildmaster," the young one said.

  Ithinia nodded. She should have expected that; most people didn't pay attention to ingredients the way wizards did. "And it said. . . ?"

  "It said it was going to wring Lar's neck while he slept, but that if he was dead, it wouldn't bother."

  "And you think it will see petrifaction as death."

  The young man suddenly looked very uncertain. "Isn't it?"

  "I think we would all agree that Bazil's Petrifaction is fatal, but Fendel's is reversible, which is generally not considered a characteristic of death."

  The look of dismay on the faces of both the young man and the Vondish ambassador was almost comical.

  "That doesn't mean your scheme won't work," she quickly reassured them. "The assassin will undoubtedly have its own standards – isn't that right?" She addressed this last to empty air.

  Nothing answered. Lar looked around the room warily.

  "It said it wouldn't answer any more questions without more honey," the young man volunteered after a few seconds of awkward silence. "I've already promised to give it more by noon tomorrow. I swore."

  Ithinia turned to consider him more carefully. "It agreed to that?"

  "Yes," the man said. "You wouldn't happen to have any honey I could give it, would you?"

  "You should send one of those soldiers you have wasting their time outside my door to fetch some, I would say."