The Unwelcome Warlock

Chapter Sixteen

Except for their size, the towers did not look like much. Vond and Sterren flew three circles around them, and Sterren really did not see anything very interesting. They were just towers, tall, unadorned cylinders, made of some unfamiliar gray substance that appeared to be midway between stone and metal. One of them was broken off on a rough diagonal about two-thirds of the way up, and the exposed surface revealed an incomprehensible jumble of mysterious stuff – crystal shards that glittered gold in the light of the setting sun, curving yellowish-white things that might have been bones, pipes made of a dozen different substances, colored cables, and so on, some of it partially melted. Other than that, the towers were featureless.

Going by what the break exposed, they were almost solid, with no stairs, ladders, or other way to ascend the interior; certainly they had no windows, and the tops of the two intact ones were rounded and smooth, not intended for anyone to stand on.

They made Sterren nervous.

“Can you feel it?” Vond asked, his voice amplified to a thunderous roar. “Feel the power!”

That, Sterren realized, was what was making him nervous – he could feel the power, and he had spent the last fifteen years suppressing any hint of magical ability he might have. Vond had altered Sterren’s brain so that he could draw energy from these towers, just as Vond himself did, but Sterren had deliberately refused to do so. He did not want to be a warlock. Oh, he had wanted to, a long time ago, when as a boy of twelve he had tried to apprentice himself to a warlock, but he had long since decided that he had been very fortunate to have failed that apprenticeship by showing no talent for warlockry. He had not wanted to ever be Called. And once the Wizards’ Guild banned warlocks from the region, he had not wanted to anger the Guild. Before that he had sometimes allowed himself just enough magic to win at dice more than was natural, but after Ithinia delivered the Guild’s ultimatum he had forsworn even that.

But here, flying maybe fifty feet from the towers that gave Lumeth of the Towers its name, he could feel power in the air around him. He could feel it flowing through his body, and his head almost seemed to be vibrating with it.

Vond clearly enjoyed this, but Sterren emphatically did not. “Can we go now?” he asked.

Vond gave him an angry glare, then took another long look at the towers. He swept up close and reached out one hand to touch the sleek gray side of the nearest one.

There was a sudden crack, like the sound of a tree limb snapping, and a green flash, and Sterren felt himself falling. He flailed wildly, reaching out, trying to find something to catch, to hold himself up.

Then he stopped in mid-air; Vond had caught him. He had fallen perhaps sixty feet – and so had Vond, Sterren realized.

Or no, Vond had fallen perhaps fifty. Where before the two men had been flying at the same altitude, Sterren was now several feet below his companion, and Sterren’s luggage hung unsupported still lower.

“It would seem there are protective spells on them,” Vond said. “Probably wizardry, from the feel of it.”

“Oh,” Sterren said, looking down at the hundred-foot drop beneath him.

“It’s a good thing we’re warlocks,” Vond continued. “That blast would have killed most people. My magic protected us.”

“Oh,” Sterren said again.

Vond frowned. “That was quite a powerful spell,” he said.

“Are you sure it was a spell, and not the towers themselves?” Sterren called up.

“No,” Vond admitted. “There’s something…something very strange about these towers. They’re magical, and of course we already assumed that, but it’s very strange magic. And the stuff they’re made of – it isn’t anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s got magic all through it, but I can’t tell what kind of magic.”

“Your Majesty,” Sterren called, “as your chief advisor, I suggest we stay well away from these things.”

“But this is where my power comes from!”

“They cause headaches in normal warlocks, one of them just tried to kill us, and the wizards claim to have put a variety of wards and safeguards around them.”

“Did they?” Vond glanced down at him, then up at the towers. “That might explain the green flash.”

“Yes, your Majesty, it might.”

Vond stared at the towers a moment longer, considering, then turned up an empty palm. “We can always come back later,” he said.

Then the two of them were swooping off to the northwest, Sterren’s baggage trailing behind, moving so quickly that for a moment Sterren had trouble breathing.

He glanced back at the towers, standing tall and straight, their west sides bright and the east sides black with shadow. Whatever they were, he was glad to be moving away. Being close to those towers was inexplicably disturbing.

He was also very glad Vond had not landed. He did not want his feet to touch Lumethan soil.

The sun was on the horizon and sinking fast; the detour to deliver the Called to Akalla had delayed their flight. Sterren wondered how far Vond intended to go tonight. As a warlock he was tireless, of course, and could generate his own light if necessary, so they might travel the entire distance to Ethshar, but he rather hoped they would not; Vond might not tire, but he did. He was not exerting himself in any way to stay airborne, but the journey was tiring nonetheless; the constant wind was wearing, the cold air sucked the warmth from his flesh, and he could not keep from tensing. He knew, intellectually, that he was securely supported by Vond’s magic, but some deep animal part of his brain did not accept that. It was convinced he was falling, and kept bracing for the inevitable impact, which became exhausting after a time.

Sterren was fairly certain that the towers were near Lumeth’s northern border; they were certainly a league or so northwest of the capital. He would be glad to be out of the forbidden area, and he thought Vond probably intended to fly at least that far before going to ground.

Indeed, the sun was still a red sliver on the western horizon when they came in sight of a castle perched atop a mountain, somewhat to the west of their route. Until now they had been passing over larger and larger hills, and this peak ahead and to the left was the first that was definitely, inarguably, a mountain, rather than a hill.

The first, but by no means the last; as they neared it Sterren could see a line of mountains extending northward, growing ever higher. He knew enough geography to know that this castle was Calimor, at the southern tip of the Southern Mountains, the range that ran down the center of the Small Kingdoms from Sevmor to – well, to here, to Calimor.

They were traveling below the height of the peaks and on the eastern side of the ridge, so that the mountains appeared as great dark shapes with the sun’s fading glow outlining them in red and gold. Calimor Castle was likewise a silhouette, one that passed and fell quickly behind as Vond flew steadily north-northwest.

They flew over a deep valley walled with rocky cliffs, a valley running east and west and separating the half-dozen most southerly mountains from the rest of the range. Sterren was fairly sure that marked the boundary between Calimor and Eknissamor; those cliffs made it impossible to cross directly from one nation to the other without using magic. To the east a kingdom called Yaroia extended from the foothills out onto the plain, and there were roads from Yaroia to both Calimor and Eknissamor, while to the west were similar routes through Gajamor, one of the largest of the Small Kingdoms. Up in the mountains, though, there was no non-magical way across that rift.

Calimor was a very small country, and it was only moments before Vond and Sterren were across the border valley and into Eknissamor. The mountains to the west grew steadily higher, blocking more and more of the sunset and subsequent twilight; the foothills to the east were larger, as well. There was no broad, fertile plain here, as there was back in southern Lumeth or in Thanoria; there were rocky uplands where sheep grazed between stony outcroppings.

Then, as full night should have been falling, Sterren noticed a glow in the sky – but not to due east, as the sunrise should be, nor due west, where the sun had set; it was to the northeast. A few minutes later they came in sight of the source.

“The Tower of Flame,” Sterren said.

It was a column of bright orange flame roaring upward into the night sky, easily a hundred and fifty feet high; as they neared it the mountain air lost its chill, and when they stopped about fifty yards away Sterren could feel its warmth on his face, as if he were standing right beside an ordinary fire.

This was no ordinary fire, though; quite aside from its size, it was burning on solid rock, with no visible fuel. The pillar of flame rose from a patch of bare stone perhaps a dozen yards down from the summit of a good-sized mountain – good-sized, but not particularly steep; the long-ago wizard who lit the fire could have reached the site on foot, without any magical assistance.

The entire peak was bare stone. They were well above the timberline, and had left the grazing sheep behind; nothing of any size lived this far up. This was the central ridge of the Southern Mountains, not far from the highest peaks.

Those highest mountains were faintly visible in the darkness to the northwest, where they formed a virtually impassable barrier between Ansumor to the west and Swezmor to the east; Vond and Sterren were close enough that the mountains would have been plainly visible in daylight, towering over them. Even by night, they could be made out as black shapes, darker than the sky and untroubled by stars.

Here in northern Eknissamor the peaks were lower, and the slopes were still gentle enough to be climbed without any magic or special equipment, and according to legend some wizard, long ago, had stopped here for the night. He or she had used a trivial little spell to light a campfire on the eastern slope of a mountain.

The spell had gone spectacularly wrong, though, and the immense fire was still burning, centuries later. The dozen sticks of firewood the wizard had brought had been consumed in the first few seconds, and the magical flame had been burning without fuel ever since.

It was famous. People came from far away to see it – as Vond and Sterren were seeing it now. There were roads leading down to the capital towns of Eknissamor in the east, Ansumor in the west, and Luvannion to the southwest, and sometimes those roads were almost crowded.

Sightseers generally did not come here this time of year, though; the risk of being caught in a winter storm was too great. Spring was a much safer season for a visit. Visitors would come up in tens and twenties and set up camp around the Tower of Flame, observing it throughout the day, so they could see it against the daylit sky, could compare it to sunrise and sunset, and could see how it lit up the night sky.

There were few signs of those camps, though; the guides generally tried to keep the area clean, and of course, there were no ashes or scorch-marks from campfires – why bother to build any lesser fire when that was available? Cooking one’s dinner in it was part of the experience, and required nothing but the food and a very long stick.

Vond and Sterren hung in the air, staring at the flames and feeling the heat wash over them.

“It’s impressive,” Sterren said.

“It is,” Vond agreed.

After a long moment of silence, Vond added, “It takes a lot of energy to do that. It’s been burning for a century?”

“Eight hundred years,” Sterren said.

“That long?”

“So they say.”

“A wizard did it?”

“Yes.”

Vond fell silent again, but eventually said, “I’m not afraid of the Wizards’ Guild.”

Sterren resisted the impulse to glance at his companion or show any sign of surprise or concern. Vond’s comment hardly followed directly from anything they had said, but its roots were plain enough. “So I understand,” Sterren said.

“I’m not afraid of them,” Vond repeated, “but they do have some powerful magic. They did that.” He pointed toward the flame.

“Yes,” Sterren said.

“I don’t think they could kill me as easily as they think, but there’s no reason to anger them if I don’t need to.”

“Of course not.”

“They banned warlocks from the empire?”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

“Including me?”

Sterren hesitated. “I do not recall whether you were mentioned specifically,” he said. “After all, you had been Called; we didn’t think your return would be an issue.”

Vond nodded. “I could fight them – but why should I? I only went to Semma in the first place to avoid the Calling; I never wanted to stay there, not if I had a choice. If the Guild doesn’t want me there, why should I argue?”

“I don’t know,” Sterren said helplessly.

“They don’t frighten me, and I don’t believe they’re anywhere near as powerful as they pretend to be, but what’s the point of antagonizing them?” He was staring at the Tower of Flame as he spoke, and Sterren thought there was something odd in his tone, as if he were trying to convince himself of something.

The question didn’t seem to need an answer, so Sterren said nothing.

“Sterren, do you have a warlock’s sight?” Vond asked.

“Do…” Sterren hesitated, trying to guess what answer Vond wanted to hear, but could not decide what would be safest. He settled for the truth. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Not really.”

Vond glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

Sterren felt trapped, but he still saw no reason not to be honest. “I don’t see all the little bits of everything, the way some warlocks say they do, but sometimes I can…I don’t know how to describe it. I can tell how something is moving, and where the strains are.”

Vond nodded. “That’s how it starts,” he said. “But you can’t see heat?”

“Not any more than anyone else. If the air ripples, I can see that.”

“No, that’s the air. I meant the heat itself.”

“No, I can’t see that.”

“You’ve been a warlock for fifteen years, and you haven’t learned to see energy?”

“I never tried to,” Sterren protested. “I never wanted to. I didn’t want to be Called.”

Vond glanced at him curiously. “You didn’t want to be a warlock?”

“Why would I? I was your regent! Who needed dangerous magic on top of that?”

“So you’re a coward?”

Sterren’s head jerked back, but then he relaxed. There was no reason to let Vond’s words upset him. No one had dared to call him a coward in a very long time, but when one looked at it realistically, there was some truth in the accusation.

“Pretty much, yes,” he said.

“I’m not. I’m not afraid of anything.”

Sterren remembered Vond cowering in his palace, trying desperately to resist the Calling; if Sterren was any judge, the warlock emperor had been terrified. But if he chose to forget or ignore that, Sterren was not inclined to argue, because Sterren was a coward, by some measures. He was afraid of a great many things. He tried not to let that interfere with doing what needed to be done, and he might try to hide it from others, but he wasn’t going to pretend to himself that he wasn’t scared by Vond, and by the Wizards’ Guild, and by any number of other things.

To Vond, those miserable nights of fighting Aldagmor’s pull had been just a few days ago. He was probably still at the stage of being embarrassed by his own fear, and trying to deny it. In a few years he might admit that yes, he had been frightened, but right now, Sterren thought, Vond was trying to demonstrate, to himself as much as to anyone else, that he was a brave man, and that the Calling had not reduced him to a whimpering child.

“Of course not; why should you be?” Sterren said. “You’re the Great Vond.”

“Exactly!” Vond was staring at the Tower of Flame again. “Do you know why I asked whether you could see energy?”

“No.”

“Because I wanted to talk to you about that fire.”

Sterren looked past Vond’s legs at the flames. “What about it?”

“It’s not really flame, in the usual sense,” Vond said. “It’s…it’s something else, something I’ve never seen anywhere else.”

“Well, yes,” Sterren said. “It’s magic.”

“Yes, I know that,” Vond said. “But I’ve never seen magic quite like it. I’ve never seen anything magical that was so big before. Usually when I watch wizardry in action it’s all sort of vague – I can’t focus on it. It’s as if it’s not really all there, or as if I’m seeing it through a dirty window. But this thing has a pattern to it; there are streaks of…of unreality, woven together with something that looks and feels like fire, but…the actual fire isn’t there anymore. We’re seeing a fire that burned a long time ago, trapped in magic and reflected over and over.”

“Really?” Sterren stared at the flame, but all he saw was flame.

“Yes. And I think I see how I could break it.”

“What?”

“I think I see how I could break the pattern. I could put it out.”

Sterren stared up at Vond’s back, then back at the tower. “Legend has it that various wizards tried to put it out, off and on for seventy or eighty years, and never managed it,” he said.

“They were wizards. I’m a warlock.”

Sterren nodded. “So you are,” he said.

“I’m very tempted to do it, just to see if I really can,” Vond said.

“That would be a disappointment to the local guides who bring visitors up here to see it,” Sterren said.

“Oh? I suppose it would. I hadn’t thought about them. I was wondering, though, whether it would upset the Wizards’ Guild if I snuffed their little candle.”

“You could really just…snuff it out?”

Vond hesitated. “Well, actually,” he said, “I’m not sure. I know I could break the pattern that holds it together, but I’m not sure where all that…that stuff, that magic, would go. It might just disappear.”

Sterren did not like the sound of that. “Might?”

“Or it might explode,” Vond said.

Sterren considered that for a moment, then said, “I’d rather not be here when you try it, then.”

“Good point,” Vond said. “And there are those guides you mentioned. But I might want to try it someday.”

“If you’re worried about annoying the Guild, you could just ask them if they mind. For all I know, they’d be glad to get rid of it.”

“That’s very true.” Vond contemplated the burning pillar for a moment longer, then raised an empty palm and turned away to the west. “It can wait, then. On to Ethshar!”

“On to Ethshar,” Sterren echoed, without much enthusiasm.

But as they flew on, and the Tower of Flame receded behind them, it struck him that being Called had mellowed Vond a little. At the height of his power, when he was paving highways and erecting his palace and reshaping various bits of landscape, he would have tested his theory and blown out the flame immediately, without worrying about the Guild or the guides or Sterren. His caution was a good sign.

But he was still insanely dangerous, and Sterren was looking forward to getting as far away from him as possible once they reached Ethshar.