The Unwelcome Warlock

Chapter Twenty

Ithinia watched as the air shimmered and then tore open, replacing a section of the plaza in front of the overlord’s palace with a patch of mud. She looked through it at the bedraggled crowd beyond. There was an odd feeling of pressure, and a peculiar smell, reminiscent of the ocean before a storm. The wizard’s ears ached, though there had been no loud sounds to cause any such discomfort.

You have until sunset tonight, the god’s soundless voice announced. When the light of day departs, the gate will close forever.

“Thank you,” Ithinia said, though she was deliberately vague about whether she was addressing the god Asham the Gate-Keeper, or the four theurgists who had summoned him. She could not see the god, and as she spoke she was less able to feel his presence, as well; he had done what had been asked of him, and now seemed to be fading away, back to wherever the gods went when they weren’t in the World. As that sensation of pressure vanished, Ithinia raised a hand and waved.

On the other side of the gate Molvarn waved back, and began calling orders. Oddly, sound did not seem to travel through the opening; Ithinia could not hear a word of what Molvarn said, nor anything else from beyond the aperture.

On her own side, lines of guardsmen in red and yellow were holding back crowds who were watching, fascinated. It wasn’t often that magic this showy was performed openly in the streets, and not saved for the Arena or paying customers.

Then the first of the refugee warlocks stepped through, and the air seemed to ripple as he emerged into Ethshar of the Spices. He was a man in late middle age, wearing a black silk tunic belted with black leather; his clothes were much the worse for wear, and his hair desperately needed to be washed and combed. He gave every impression of being exhausted, but when he looked around at the plaza, at the overlord’s palace and the familiar houses that lined the other three sides of the square, he broke into a broad grin. The crowd began cheering.

The former warlock turned and gave a cheerful wave to the people beyond the gate, then stepped aside, clearing the way for the next.

That next was an old woman, also dressed in black, as were most of the Called. She was closely followed by two more men, then another woman, and after that it was no longer individuals so much as a steady stream of humanity pouring through the divinely-provided portal. The crowd’s enthusiastic applause turned into more specific shouts as people began to recognize lost friends or family members. “Kelder! Over here!”

“Aunt Irith! It’s me, Intirin!”

“Oh, gods, it’s Shennar! Shen, I thought I’d never see you again!”

“Master Kardig! Master! I’m here!”

“Kelder! No, I mean the other Kelder, Kelder of Hawker Street!”

Ithinia watched for a few minutes, but as the plaza began to fill up she called to one of the soldiers, “Keep them moving! We need to get everyone through before sundown!”

The guardsman nodded, and conferred with his companions; half a dozen men in red kilts and yellow tunics stepped forward and began shouting. “Come on, move it along! Make room for the poor bastards, will you? Keep walking, there’s plenty of space up Central Avenue or along Merchant Street. Let them through!” They didn’t hesitate to grab shoulders and turn people in the right direction, then give them a shove to help them along.

And that, Ithinia thought, was that. Asham had done what was asked, and then gone away. That before-the-storm smell still lingered, and probably would as long as the gate was open, but the god himself had definitely departed.

With this final portal functioning, and the other spells and operations already in place, fifteen thousand former warlocks were being efficiently distributed to the three Ethshars, to Sardiron of the Waters, and to vacant land suitable for farming in the northeastern corner of the Hegemony – and not to anywhere near Lumeth of the Towers. They wouldn’t all find places for themselves right away, but the ones who had homes to return to could do so, and the rest would be so scattered they would be no real threat to peace and order.

That was all the Wizards’ Guild really cared about, of course – keeping peace and order. Helping out a bunch of people was a pleasant side-effect, and any gratitude they might feel toward wizards would be welcome, but the main thing was to not leave an army of desperate people sitting out there in the cold and mud, ready to cause trouble.

Removing their potential leaders probably hadn’t been necessary, but Ithinia was just as glad to have people like Vond and Hanner and Rudhira away from the main group.

Rudhira probably wasn’t any threat without her magic, in any case, but Ithinia still remembered the little redhead pulling an entire mountain of water up toward the sky to test her ability. Anyone who had ever tasted that sort of power wanted watching. Most warlocks didn’t reach that level before being Called.

Hanner was the natural leader of the group, but even after seventeen years as chairman he didn’t seem to realize it. He had always taken his position to be a fluke, never acknowledging how much like his uncle Faran he was. Lord Faran had been the effective ruler of the city for much of the reign of Azrad the Sedentary, and while Hanner hadn’t inherited any of the ambition that had made that possible, and he certainly hadn’t had Faran’s looks or his way with women, he had the same knack for seeing what needed to be done and making sure it was done.

Fortunately, what he thought needed to be done usually suited the Guild’s own needs nicely. Making him an ally, at least provisionally, was easy.

Vond, though – Vond might be a problem. He was still a warlock because he had learned to use the magic of the Lumeth Towers, as well as the magic radiated by the Warlock Stone, and he did have ambition. Unchecked power, ambition – and not, from what Ithinia knew of him, any excess of intelligence. That made him very dangerous indeed. But he had violated the Guild’s ban on warlocks in the vicinity of Lumeth, so the Guild had a perfectly legitimate excuse for killing him, and it wouldn’t even count as meddling in politics.

Ithinia still hadn’t decided whether to kill him directly, or turn the job over to the cult of Demerchan. Either approach could be slanted to make the Guild look good. Demerchan never explained how they decided who to kill, so the Guild could dodge the responsibility entirely, perhaps even blame the assassination on the family of one of the kings Vond had deposed in assembling his empire.

If the Guild killed him directly, they could play the stern-but-fair role. It wasn’t as if Vond was particularly loved by his people; he’d been gone for fifteen years, and hadn’t yet had time to properly reestablish himself.

She had also decided that if she had to kill him herself, or choose the spell for someone else, she would use a transformation of some sort. She knew that warlocks could be petrified, or turned into animals, and that for some reason it was much, much easier to get such a spell past a warlock’s defenses than any more direct sort of attack. Statues or beasts couldn’t use warlockry, so once Vond was transformed, he could be killed easily. Also, if a transformation spell failed, it would be less obvious than if Vond survived being struck by a meteor or blasted with supernatural flame.

The trick was choosing exactly the right transformation to make the right impression on any witnesses. Some of the best transformations wouldn’t be possible, because so far as Ithinia had been able to determine, nobody knew Vond’s true name. It almost certainly wasn’t Vond. No one Ithinia had asked admitted to having ever heard of a warlock named Vond prior to his appearance in Semma.

Of course, she might not have asked the right people.

Ordinarily she would have used a divination of some sort to learn his true name, but divinations didn’t work on warlocks. That was profoundly annoying.

Eliminating spells that required a true name left about half a dozen possibilities. Haldane’s Instantaneous Transformation wasn’t practical, though, as that required physically touching the target with the skin of whatever animal he was to become. Llarimuir’s Mass Transmogrification was intended for multiple targets, rather than a single individual, but it would work – if Ithinia could find anyone willing to attempt a twelfth-order spell. She didn’t care to attempt it herself.

Fendel’s Greater Transformation would probably work, but since that normally left the victim with human abilities, such as being able to speak, in addition to the abilities natural to whatever animal or plant he became, Ithinia wasn’t completely convinced it would stop Vond from using warlockry.

The Greater Spell of Transmutation would do, as would either Bazil’s Irreversible Petrifaction or Fendel’s Superior Petrifaction. One of those was probably the best choice. The big drawback with all of them was that they required the victim be within sight of the wizard casting the spell. It didn’t need to be a direct line of sight, though; a reflected image would do, or the image in a scrying glass or other visual divination. That would be easy to arrange with an ordinary man, but warlocks were naturally resistant to wizardry – it wasn’t just finding Vond’s true name that was difficult, but any sort of divination involving him. Getting a clear enough image in a scrying glass might be difficult.

She hoped that all the Called warlocks he had taken with him to Semma could be removed before any of them managed to adapt to the energy of the towers the way Vond had. She knew many had already regretted their decision to accompany him and fled toward the coast, and she was optimistic about getting the rest out of the area once Vond had been dealt with.

Well, now that the main body of the Called had been dissipated harmlessly, she could turn her full attention to the dear little Emperor. She turned away from the divinely-created gate and the steady stream of former warlocks.

“Guildmaster Ithinia?”

Startled, she looked around, and found Rothiel standing a few feet away, waving to be seen above the crowd. “Yes?” she said.

“I have news I think you’ll want to hear.”

Ithinia felt fairly certain that his news was actually something she needed to hear, but did not want to, but she did not bother to argue semantics. “This way,” she said, beckoning.

She hadn’t bothered to bring any privacy spells, but she reached in the pouch on her belt to see if there was anything that might help. She had the pearl and candle necessary for Fendel’s Rune of Privacy, but that would hardly be practical out here in the street, where any casual passerby might disrupt the sphere of silence. No other quick and suitable spells came to mind, and she did not really want to invite Rothiel into her home, where protections were already in place. They would just need to speak cautiously.

The two wizards made their way out of the plaza and up Merchant Street, then onto West Avenue; by the time they reached the corner of West Avenue and Lower Street they were clear of the throngs of warlocks and spectators, who were expanding in other directions than this.

“What is it, Rothiel?” Ithinia demanded, once she thought they would probably not be overheard. She kept walking, in the direction of her own house.

“It’s Vond,” he said, walking beside her.

Ithinia had feared as much. “What’s he done? Has he attacked Lumeth?”

Rothiel waved a hand in denial. “No, no. Nothing like that.”

“He isn’t invading somewhere? He’s still in Semma?”

“Well – no. He’s not.”

Ithinia frowned. “Not Semma or Lumeth? Then where is he?”

“Here. In Ethshar.”

“What?” She turned to glare at the other wizard.

“In Ethshar. On High Street. At Warlock House. He arrived early this morning.”

“What’s he doing there?”

Rothiel turned up an empty palm. “Right now, I believe he’s out for a walk, accompanied by Zallin of the Mismatched Eyes.”

“Oh, blood,” Ithinia growled. Of all the people who might be associating with Vond, Zallin would have been very nearly her last choice. She just hoped Zallin couldn’t nag Vond into tinkering with his brain so that he, too, could use the power of Lumeth’s towers.

She wished she could be sure whether or not Vond wanted other warlocks around. She thought that he would prefer not to have any potential rivals, but she couldn’t know that with any certainty.

“Well, at least we won’t need to travel to the edge of the World to kill him,” she muttered, as they neared her front door.

“If I may, Guildmaster – we may not want to kill him.”

“What?” She stopped walking and turned to face her fellow wizard.

“You see, as I understand it,” Rothiel explained, “as soon as he was informed of the Guild’s edict forbidding warlocks in his empire, he left the empire and came here. He’s obeying our ruling; it wouldn’t look good to kill him.”

“It wouldn’t look good to have a warlock running amok in the streets of Ethshar, either.”

“He isn’t running amok, Guildmaster. He’s behaving himself, at least so far. And there’s something else.”

“What?”

“The overlord’s rules. He doesn’t allow the killing foreign dignitaries within the city walls – not even by us.”

“Foreign dignitaries?”

“I think an emperor qualifies as a foreign dignitary, yes.”

“Oh, blood and death!” Ithinia had been thinking of Vond purely as a dangerous magician, and had forgotten that he was also an emperor.

At the sound of her outburst one of her gargoyles turned to look down at her; she could hear the grinding of stone on stone, but she ignored it as she considered the situation.

The very fact that Vond was both a warlock and an emperor violated the Guild’s rule against allowing anyone to possess both personal magic and political power, and ordinarily that would have been enough to demand his abdication or death, but just how the Guild could enforce this in the present circumstances was unclear. He was a foreign official, and therefore under the overlord’s protection as long as he was inside the city walls.

Wizards of Ithinia’s level certainly had the power to do whatever they pleased, regardless of the overlord’s laws or orders, but the Guild had insisted for centuries that its members must obey the local laws wherever practical. Throwing away that long history of cooperation with the triumvirate that ruled the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars was not something to be done lightly, not even to remove the last warlock from the World. Wizards were an accepted part of Ethsharitic society, and everyone liked it that way, but there were limits. Defying Lord Azrad on this might well be a catastrophically bad idea.

Well, maybe Vond wouldn’t be staying. Maybe he was only visiting for a few days, and would then go back to the Small Kingdoms, where he could be assassinated with impunity.

“Perhaps it’s for the best,” Rothiel said. “If he behaves himself, having one last warlock around might even be useful.”

“One last warlock, maybe,” Ithinia grudgingly admitted. “The Great Vond, self-proclaimed emperor? I doubt that will end well. And that’s without mentioning his power source; we don’t know what his magic is doing to the towers.”

“It probably isn’t doing anything, Guildmaster.”

“Let’s hope you’re right. While we’re at it, let’s hope Vond doesn’t turn this city into a slaughterhouse.”

“If he does, I’m sure the overlord will ask us to kill him.”

“I’m sure that will be a great comfort to his victims’ families.”

“Ithinia, he didn’t turn Semma into a slaughterhouse; why should he treat his home city any worse?”

“Because we’re more crowded here, and less willing to be pushed around. He built his empire by replacing a bunch of kings; those people were used to taking orders.”

“I don’t see how our three overlords are so very different, Guildmaster.”

“That’s because you’ve never lived in the Small Kingdoms.”

“If you will forgive me for saying so, neither have you. You’re from Tintallion, aren’t you? And you’ve been here in Ethshar for centuries.”

“Yes, I’m from Tintallion,” Ithinia agreed, “and Tintallion has kings, so I know what they’re like. The overlords are different.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. I also say that I will sleep more easily when Vond is dead.”

“I will sleep more easily if I am not involved in angering the overlord.”

“Fine! Then you won’t be involved. I’m not going to kill Vond while he’s in the city unless the overlord gives permission, or unless I’m acting in self-defense.” She smiled. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t encourage him to go elsewhere.”

“I don’t think -” Rothiel began.

Ithinia cut him off. “I want to talk to those theurgists again,” she said. “And I want to hire some witches.”

“I don’t…”

“Wizardry doesn’t work properly on warlocks, but witchcraft does.”

“Guildmaster, I…”

“You don’t want to be involved? I’m not going to kill him. But that’s fine; you don’t need to be involved. I’ll handle this myself.” She turned and strode to her front door, leaving Rothiel standing in the street looking baffled.