The Unwelcome Warlock

Chapter Fourteen

Sterren grew steadily more nervous as he waited in the plaza, between the doors of the imperial palace and the fountain in the center of the square. Vond had said he would be here an hour after noon, and by Sterren’s reckoning it was now half an hour beyond that. The little crowd Sterren had gathered was growing restless.

“Lord Sterren,” Lady Kalira said, “is there a problem?” She still spoke Ethsharitic with a slight accent, even after all these years.

“I don’t know,” Sterren replied. “He said he would be here.”

“I think I’ve changed my mind,” said one of the former warlocks. “I’ll find another way to Ethshar.”

“That’s your choice,” Sterren told her. “I don’t even know whether the emperor would take you, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

“It might hurt, though,” another of the “honor guard” said. “I’ve heard stories about his temper. He might think we’re getting above ourselves.”

“But he said we would have positions of authority!”

“He said we’d have them here, not in Ethshar.”

Several of them began speaking at once, and Sterren stepped away.

Lady Kalira followed him, and whispered, “Do you still think he’s coming?”

“I don’t know,” Sterren said. “Honestly, he said he would.”

“The wizards may have trapped or killed him.”

“I thought of that,” Sterren admitted. “If they did, wouldn’t they tell us?”

“They might not bother.” She glanced back at the arguing warlocks. “Could something else have happened to him? Maybe there is something even worse that happens to warlocks, something that the Calling had protected him from.”

Sterren grimaced; that possibility had never occurred to him, and while he didn’t think it was likely, it was not a pleasant idea. After all, he was technically a warlock himself. “I don’t know,” he said. “Nobody knows much about how warlock magic works, and they know even less about Vond’s version.”

“If he never comes back, you’re still regent.”

“No, you are!” Sterren protested. “He appointed you regent last night!”

“He didn’t tell me that; I have only your word for it.”

“Are you doubting my word, then?”

“As a matter of fact, Lord Sterren, I often doubt your word. In this case I think you were probably telling the truth – but I also think I will deny I ever said that. I’m not interested in this sort of responsibility; I don’t want to be regent.”

“I never wanted to be regent. That was the council’s idea.”

“That’s why you were good at it!”

“I did as little as I could; that was good?”

“That was excellent. The secret of good government is to let people go on about their own business. Oh, there are times you must act, but unless your people are asking for your help, usually it’s best to do nothing.”

“Not everyone would agree.”

“No, but ask your overlords back in Ethshar some time. I think they would.”

Sterren had never paid much attention to government in his youth, back in Ethshar, but he suspected Kalira was right. “Well, then it shouldn’t be hard for you to be regent,” he said. “You’ve just told me the secret of good government; all you need to do is apply that knowledge.”

She glared at him.

“Can you suggest anyone better?” Sterren asked. “There might still be time to change Vond’s mind.”

“Lord Algarven, perhaps?”

“How old is he? And I don’t think Vond likes him.”

“Those are not the most important qualifications.”

Sterren turned up an empty palm. “I suggested you. If you want to argue with the Great Vond about it, I won’t stop you.”

“If he comes back, maybe I will.”

“As you please.” Sterren glanced past Lady Kalira at the cluster of Called warlocks; he had gathered twenty-six of them, but there were no longer that many. Some of them had clearly decided they didn’t want to ask about being carried to Ethshar after all.

He had only been able to find about thirty of the eighty or more who had originally accompanied Vond; the rest had presumably either believed the rumors about Vond’s power being demonic, or had been so beset by headaches they fled, or had simply gone about their own business. A few of the thirty had said they were happy staying on as guests of the empire, leaving the twenty-six who had been waiting on the plaza with Sterren.

Some of them admitted to having headaches; others reported a nagging buzz or hum; others claimed not to perceive anything out of the ordinary. Sterren guessed that even though they were all warlocks, there were variations in their brains that affected how they reacted to the Lumeth source – if they reacted at all.

So far, none showed any signs of being able to exploit the Lumeth source to power magic, as Vond did. That was good. Sterren had made sure that they all knew the Wizards’ Guild had forbidden warlocks to enter the empire, or several of the other southern kingdoms, which he hoped would temper any interest in regaining their magic.

He wondered what the Wizards’ Guild would do about Vond – or what they had done about Vond, if that was why he was so late. If Vond was dead, would his subjects blame Sterren? Would they consider him a traitor?

Or would they celebrate? Yes, Vond had created the empire, overthrown the old kings and removed the worst of the old aristocracy, built the palace, built the roads, and brought peace to the region, but he had also killed anyone who got in his way, gathered a harem, and generally treated the empire as his personal playground. Sterren had not been able to get a good feel, as yet, for how Vond’s return was received.

And how would the Wizards’ Guild look at Sterren? As regent he had agreed to keep warlocks out, but he had welcomed Vond back; the wizards might not appreciate that.

Sterren looked up to the east again, then blinked. At first he thought he might be imagining it, but no – that black shape in the distance was Vond, approaching quickly. He let out his breath.

“There he is,” he told Kalira, pointing.

“What?” She turned, startled. “Oh, yes!”

“Are you going to ask him to choose someone else?”

Kalira hesitated, then shook her head. “No,” she said. “Maybe after I see how it goes.” She squared her shoulders and stood up straight, awaiting her emperor.

A moment later Vond swooped down to hang a foot or so above the plaza, facing Sterren. He was smiling cheerfully as he approached, but once he stopped, his expression turned serious. “Are you ready?” he demanded.

Sterren gestured at his baggage – two large bundles and a trunk. “I am, your Majesty.”

“Good! Then let us…” Vond began. Then he stopped.

Sterren had felt himself tugged upward, but he used his own feeble magic to resist, to pull himself back down, keeping his toes, if not his entire feet, on the ground. He had no doubt at all that Vond could easily overcome his opposition, but this would at least get the emperor’s attention.

“Was there something else?” Vond asked.

“Two things, your Majesty,” Sterren replied. “First, would you please confirm Lady Kalira as the new regent, if such is your pleasure?”

Vond glanced at the woman in question, then turned his gaze back to Sterren. “And the second?”

“Second, some of the people you brought from Aldagmor would like to accompany us to Ethshar.” He gestured at the waiting Called. “I understand they do not feel comfortable here.”

“Ah,” Vond said, looking over the former warlocks thoughtfully. They were a worried and tired-looking group, about evenly split between male and female, all watching Sterren and the emperor nervously. “Headaches, ringing in the ear, perhaps? That sort of thing?”

“Exactly, your Majesty.”

“Then by all means, they should come with us! Well done, Sterren, thinking of that.”

“And the regency?” Sterren prodded gently.

“Yes!” Vond rose a foot or so and amplified his voice, so that the entire square echoed with his words. “Lady Kalira, I hereby name you regent, and appoint you to administer the empire in my absence! Rule wisely until I return!”

Lady Kalira curtsied deeply in response, and by the time she rose once more to her feet, Sterren and the former warlocks – Sterren counted nineteen, nine men and ten women – were rising upward into the air.

Some of them were muttering or calling questions, which Vond totally ignored. He had his attention focused to the northwest, toward Ethshar of the Spices.

Sterren watched the plaza fall away, then turned to the south to see Semma Castle receding as he was pulled upward and northward. Within a few seconds of Vond’s final word, Sterren and the others were passing over the red tile roof of the imperial palace, leaving behind the marble walls and tile roofs of New Semma, and the half-timber and thatch of Old Town.

Once they were well clear of the buildings, Sterren glanced back and down, and saw that his luggage was following them.

The former warlocks, of course, had no luggage; they still had only what they had brought with them when they were Called. They did not look very happy, which struck Sterren as slightly odd – they were being given a free ride back to Ethshar, after all. Shouldn’t they be pleased?

Vond, unlike the others, seemed quite cheerful. He was smiling, and his movements were calm and easy.

Wind whipped at Sterren’s hair and whistled in his ears, so he had to shout to be heard. “You seem to be in a good mood,” he said to Vond. “Are you so pleased to see the last of the town you built?”

Vond turned his smile on Sterren. “I had a pleasant night,” he said. “And I’m looking forward to seeing Ethshar again – it’s been almost a year!” Then he blinked, and said, “Or fifteen years, from your point of view.”

Sterren nodded, and did not try speaking again; it wasn’t worth the effort to be heard over the wind.

By now they were sailing over mile upon mile of small farms and scattered villages; the fields were mostly brown, the harvest in. The names of the months were not even remotely accurate this far south, but even so, by this late in Newfrost most of the crops had been brought in.

Sterren felt a certain pride at the landscape below. Sixteen years ago, when he first came to Semma, this land had been far less productive, the population far smaller. The roads Vond had built had something to do with that, but as regent Sterren had made sure that the roads were maintained and extended, irrigation canals built, and the peasants allowed to work the land as they chose, undisturbed by wars or the sometimes ruinous whims of the nobility.

There was no way to tell when they left the province of Semma and entered Ksinallion; the once-fortified border was gone without a trace. Again, when they passed from Ksinallion into Thanoria, Sterren was only aware of the distinction from years of studying the empire’s maps and learning the relevant landmarks.

But then the roads and canals stopped, and the farms grew smaller, less even, and less prosperous, and Sterren knew they had left the empire and passed into Lumeth of the Towers.

He shivered at the realization. They were now breaking the treaty with the Wizards’ Guild, defying the Guild’s edict. Long ago, Ithinia of the Isle had calmly told him that if he ever set foot in Lumeth, he would be killed. She had also told him that wards had been set all along the border to alert the Guild if the empire tried to invade any of its neighbors, or vice versa.

He hoped that those wards did not extend this far up, and that flying over Lumeth, not under his own power, would not have the same result as setting his feet on the ground; all the same, he knew he would feel much safer once they were beyond Lumeth, and beyond Eknissamor – Eknissamor was the most northerly of the kingdoms where warlockry was forbidden. Once they had passed that point, they would no longer be in violation of the Guild’s rules.

He glanced back at the emperor’s “honor guard,” and suddenly realized that most of them were in pain – several were clutching at their temples, and at least one had started screaming; Sterren had not recognized the sound as anything but more wind at first.

He silently cursed his own stupidity in not foreseeing this. “Your Majesty!” he shouted. “Your Majesty! Vond!”

“Hm?” The warlock turned to see Sterren pointing at their suffering companions.

Abruptly, their forward motion stopped, and the entire party hung motionless in mid-air, a at least hundred yards up.

“What’s happening?” Vond asked.

Sterren pointed north and made a gesture that he hoped indicated a tower.

“Oh?” Vond said. “Oh!”

Suddenly they were moving again, but to the southwest, rather than northwest, and descending. A moment later they began landing in an empty field that Sterren judged to be just inside the empire’s border. Most of the former warlocks stumbled, and about half of them fell, upon touching ground; Vond had not been particularly gentle about bringing them down, and while they had all flown before they were accustomed to being in control of their own motion, not being dragged about by someone else’s magic.

“Wait here,” Vond told them. Then he and Sterren shot upward.

The sudden motion was frightening, and Sterren’s stomach did not take it well, but he managed to keep his lunch down.

“They’re feeling it, aren’t they?” Vond demanded, once he was sure he and Sterren were well out of earshot. “The hum. The power.”

“I think so, yes,” Sterren said. “After all, they were all powerful enough to be Called, just as you were.”

“I can’t take them any closer, then.”

“They might adjust to it, as you did; then you wouldn’t be the only warlock.”

Vond shook his head. “I don’t want that. I don’t know these people, not really. I don’t know whether I can trust them with this magic.”

Sterren glanced down at the others, scattered on a farmer’s field. Several were still holding their heads and appeared to be moaning. “Then you mustn’t take them any further into Lumeth.”

“But I wanted to see the towers!”

“The Wizards’ Guild doesn’t want us anywhere near the towers.”

“To Hell with the Wizards’ Guild! I’m going back to Ethshar, and that should be good enough for them. If I want to do a little sightseeing along the way, I don’t see how that hurts them, and I don’t care if it does!”

“It hurts them, though,” Sterren said, pointing down at the nineteen Called warlocks.

“Then maybe I’ll just leave them here.”

“Strand them out here in the middle of nowhere?”

Vond hesitated. “Blast it. It was your idea to bring them; why didn’t you realize this would happen?”

“I didn’t know what route you were going to take!” Sterren protested. “You didn’t give us time to discuss it.”

He knew, though, that he should have expected it; he had known that the warlocks could sense the energy Vond was using, and found it uncomfortable.

Vond frowned. “Fine. I’ll take them to the nearest port and let them take a ship, and when that’s done, you and I will go take a look at the towers, and the Pillar of Flame, and then we’ll go to Ethshar.”

“As your Majesty pleases.”

Vond looked around. “Where is the nearest port?”

Sterren looked out across the landscape, trying to match it to the maps of the empire, and finally said, “Akalla of the Diamond. That way.”

“Good,” Vond said. He looked down, and the former warlocks were suddenly snatched upward, and a moment later the entire party was flying southwest at high speed – much too fast for further conversation.

An hour later nineteen terrified, exhausted, miserable people were unceremoniously dumped on a pier in Akalla, and the emperor’s voice boomed from overhead.

“Send them to Ethshar!” he said. “Put them on the next ship, at my expense!”

Sterren watched for a moment as people scurried about, rushing to please the warlock emperor. Then he was swept away northward again, toward Lumeth of the Towers.