The Unwelcome Warlock

Chapter Twenty-Four

The gathering in Ithinia’s parlor was more crowded than she liked; if the weather had been warmer, she would have held the meeting in her garden, instead. On a chilly, overcast day like this one, though, that would not work. If the group had all been wizards there were several places they could have met, but they were not; in fact, much of the point of the meeting was to involve the others.

“All right,” she said. “What news do we have?” She pointed to a wizard in a mouse-colored robe. “You – Arvagan the Gray, isn’t it? Why are you here?”

“I thought you might want to know that the former warlock, Chairman Hanner, came by my shop this afternoon asking after the Transporting Tapestry I sold him,” Arvagan replied. “You had asked about tapestries yourself, so I thought you’d be interested.”

“That’s the one you made him as a refuge where warlocks could avoid the Call?”

“That was the intention, yes, but when he tested it he was immediately Called.”

“As I recall, we discussed using it to get some of the refugees back to the city, but we didn’t want to route them through another universe.”

“And we weren’t sure the return tapestry would still work,” Arvagan said.

“That’s right. So Hanner wanted to know where it is?”

“Yes.”

“You told him?”

“I don’t know where it is, Guildmaster; that was another reason we didn’t use it. I returned it to his family after he was Called.”

“His family is still in Ethshar?”

“I have no reason to think otherwise.”

“So he’s trying to acquire the tapestry, to have access to his supposed refuge,” Ithinia said thoughtfully.

“But when he tested it, he was Called,” Arvagan said.

“But the Calling is gone,” Ithinia replied. “That refuge – if Vond entered it, he would presumably lose contact with the towers.”

“Until he came back out, yes. There is a return tapestry, remember.”

“Still, it might prove useful.” She nodded, then looked over the faces again, and focused on one she didn’t recognize, a man of indeterminate age in a nondescript brown cloak who was sitting quietly in the back. “You,” she said, pointing. “Who are you?”

“I am Kelder of Demerchan,” he said.

A sudden silence fell over the room.

“Are you indeed?” Ithinia asked.

The man nodded.

“I do not believe I invited you to this gathering.”

“You did not, Guildmaster, but we thought it advisable to have a representative here, all the same, to ensure that we would not be working at cross-purposes.”

“I see. Will you tell us, then, what interest the Cult of Demerchan has in the current situation?”

“Within limits, yes. Certain persons have asked us to remove the Emperor Vond. We have not yet decided whether to accept this commission.”

“By ‘remove,’ you mean ‘assassinate’?”

“The precise means of removal were not specified.”

Ithinia considered this. She knew annoyingly little about the Cult of Demerchan. They were an organization of magician-assassins, based somewhere in the Small Kingdoms, that had operated in secrecy for centuries. They made extensive use of tunnels and hidden passages, and used various kinds of magic – apparently including wizardry, though so far as she knew, none of them acknowledged the authority of the Wizards’ Guild.

Ordinarily, for anyone outside the Guild to use wizardry the penalty would be immediate execution, but somehow Demerchan had never incurred such consequences. Whether this was an oversight, deliberate neglect, or something else, she did not know; it was not her responsibility. She was the senior Guildmaster of Ethshar of the Spices, and a member of the Guild’s Inner Circle, but she was not one of the Hundred; there were levels above her, and the Guild had secrets she did not know. What happened in the Small Kingdoms was usually not her concern. She had intervened a dozen years ago when it appeared that the Empire of Vond might threaten the security of the towers in Lumeth of the Towers, and word had later reached her that her actions met with the approval of her superiors, but she had also been reminded that she was to meddle in the Small Kingdoms only in the most exceptional circumstances.

The existence and behavior of the Cult of Demerchan was therefore none of her business – or it hadn’t been until this man showed up in her house.

“If you have not yet decided to accept the commission, then what purposes do you have that we might cross?” she demanded.

“We have our own interests. I am here in part to determine whether your interests align with ours. I am here in person, Guildmaster, and visible to you all, because we prefer not to antagonize the Guild, or the Sisterhood, or the Hierarchies, or the Initiates, unnecessarily; I am to speak up should it seem that a conflict is developing that might be avoided.”

That was a reasonable answer, and a believable one. Ithinia had not missed the implication that Demerchan sometimes listened in to the Guild’s private deliberations secretly, by means of their own magic, but she decided to ignore that for now – though she might want to reconsider some of her standard wards and protections when this was all done.

“You want to know whether your interests align with ours,” she said. “I would say they do. The interests of every living thing in the World are involved.”

“Oh?”

Ithinia looked over the crowd of magicians; some of them looked confused, while other faces were alight with anticipation, and still others appeared to be confident they understood the situation. Some of them probably did.

“We are not here because warlockry ended,” she said. “The World managed without it for centuries, and will do so again. We are not here because fifteen thousand refugees have suddenly been dumped on our society; the Hegemony dealt with a far worse refugee problem at the end of the Great War, and emerged from it relatively unscathed. We are not even here because of the possible danger posed by a warlock unrestrained by any threat of the Calling, one who has already demonstrated that he is perfectly willing to kill innocent people who get in his way, though that is a matter worthy of our attention. No, we are here because the source of that warlock’s power is essential to us all, and we do not want Vond, or anyone else, tampering with it.”

“Could you be a little more specific, Guildmaster?” asked a white-robed theurgist whose name Ithinia had forgotten.

“You all know that warlocks drew their power from that thing in Aldagmor,” Ithinia said. “Well, Vond found a way to draw power from the towers in Lumeth of the Towers, and we fear that this may in time weaken or damage the towers’ magic.”

“What magic?” the theurgist asked.

Somehow, Ithinia had assumed that every powerful magician would know some of the ancient secrets of the Wizards’ Guild, but of course there was no reason for that to be the case, and clearly it wasn’t. Unless, of course, the theurgist was just testing to see whether the wizardly version of the story matched whatever the priests believed.

“You are all aware, I trust, that the World does not extend indefinitely in every direction, but has edges?” She looked around the room, and saw no one indicating otherwise. “Do you know what lies beyond those edges?”

“No,” said Kirris of Slave Street. Trust a witch to be blunt, Ithinia thought. Kirris made no secret of her dislike for wizards, and Ithinia was slightly surprised she had agreed to attend this meeting. Her friend Teneria had probably talked her into it.

“Isn’t it all just sky beyond the edge?” the theurgist asked.

“No, it’s not,” Ithinia said. “Beyond the World’s edge is a vast cloud of poisonous yellow mist; so far as we know, it goes on forever in every direction except up. No one has ever seen the bottom, or the far side, of the golden mist, though it’s possible to fly above it. You can see it in the distance if you go near the edge; most sailors have seen it, and it’s visible from much of Vond’s empire, and from the western shores of Tintallion’s Isle where I grew up. If you’ve seen it, you must undoubtedly have wondered what holds it back – why hasn’t it swept over the World and poisoned us all?”

“Magic?” someone said; Ithinia didn’t see who had spoken.

“Magic! Of course. To be exact, the largest sorcerous talismans known to exist – the three towers in Lumeth cast a protective spell over the entire World, holding back the poisons and keeping our air clean and sweet.”

“Not the gods?” the theurgist asked.

Ithinia turned up a hand. “The legend passed down in our Guild says that the gods helped build the towers, but that it is the towers alone that now protect us. Our divinations confirm this. That is the power that this Vond is meddling with.”

“Meddling how?” Kirris asked.

“We don’t know,” Ithinia said. “Warlockry blocks our spells. But we know that’s where he’s drawing his power from, and we are concerned that he might somehow damage or weaken the towers’ magic.”

“The warlocks didn’t damage the thing in Aldagmor,” Teneria of Fishertown said. “There were thousands of them drawing on it, and it wasn’t affected at all.”

“But the towers are different,” Ithinia replied. “Ordinary warlocks can’t use their power; there’s something different about Vond.”

“The gods can see him,” volunteered old Corinal the Theurgist, from his place in the corner of the room.

“What?” Kirris said, turning.

“The gods can see him,” Corinal repeated. “They never could see ordinary warlocks, you know, and until these last few days we could never get a coherent explanation out of them.”

“Now you can?” Teneria asked.

“Well – not so very coherent as we might like, even now, but at least we have an explanation.”

“What is it?” Arvagan asked. “It might be important.”

Corinal looked at Ithinia, who nodded. “Well,” he said, “the gods do not see the World or anything in it the same way we do. They don’t recognize human beings by how we look – two arms, two legs, a head, and so on – but by how we think. They see our souls, not our physical bodies. They can’t usually see demonologists as people because dealing with demons distorts a person’s soul, and renders it not quite human enough for the gods to recognize.”

“So warlocks don’t have human souls?” Kirris asked.

“Oh, of course they do! But they also had something else. They were reflecting, or echoing, that thing in Aldagmor, and that was so loud, or so bright, or however you want to think of it, that it completely drowned out the warlocks’ own souls. That thing wasn’t from our reality at all, and the gods only concern themselves with our universe, not with others, so they paid no attention to it – it wasn’t part of the World, so it wasn’t real, as far as the gods could tell. It was like a shadow blocking their vision, or perhaps a roar deafening them, so they could not perceive warlocks or warlockry as anything but a sort of gap in reality. It was only when the Warlock Stone left, and all those human souls reappeared, that the gods understood what had happened clearly enough that they could explain it to us.”

“But they can see Vond?” Kirris asked.

“Because the towers are part of our universe,” Ithinia said.

“And because the towers aren’t trying to communicate,” Corinal said. “They aren’t drowning out Vond’s own thoughts with theirs – they don’t have any.”

“Which is why Vond doesn’t need to worry about another Calling,” Ithinia said.

For a moment the room was silent as everyone absorbed this explanation, but then Kirris asked, “Does Vond know that?”

“What?”

“Does Vond know he won’t be Called again?” Kirris asked.

Ithinia blinked, then turned to Teneria. “Does he?” she asked.

Teneria considered the question carefully before replying. “He probably doesn’t know it,” she said. “He assumes it, because he senses the energy from the towers as a steady hum, rather than a whispering voice like the Warlock Stone. The Aldagmor source was asking for something, though none of us understood what it wanted, and that’s why there was the Calling, and why warlockry was addictive, why warlocks wanted to use their magic even when they didn’t need to. The towers aren’t asking for anything; they’re just doing what they were created to do, so Vond doesn’t feel the same urges he did before. But he doesn’t know anything. He just assumes that his new magic is completely safe and harmless.”

“I’m not sure I see the significance,” Rothiel said.

“It’s simple,” Kirris said. “If we can convince Vond that he’s in danger of another Calling, one just as mysterious and potentially fatal as the one he’s already experienced, then he’ll limit his use of his magic – perhaps give it up completely.”

Ithinia considered this suggestion, and admired its elegance. It might not work, but it did seem worth a try.

“How would we convince him?” demanded the theurgist whose name Ithinia couldn’t remember. “I doubt he’ll believe us if we simply tell him there’s another Calling.”

“Not until he hears it,” Teneria said.

“He won’t ever hear it!” the theurgist exclaimed.

Ithinia looked at Teneria, who said quietly, “We can make him hear it.”

The theurgist turned to look at her. “What? How?”

“Witchcraft,” Teneria said.

“I’d be interested in further explanation, my dear,” Corinal said. “Just how would that work?”

Teneria looked at their hostess, who said, “Please do explain, Teneria.”

Teneria nodded. “Ten years ago,” she said, “I was in Aldagmor on an unrelated errand when I encountered a Sardironese warlock named Adar Dagon’s son who had just been Called. He was struggling to resist, so without really thinking about it, I helped him.”

“Helped him how?” the white-robed theurgist asked. “I didn’t think anyone could help a Called warlock.”

“No one else thought so, either,” Teneria said. “I discovered, though, that the same sort of calming witches do all the time with frightened children interfered with the Call, and weakened it enough that Adar could resist it for a time. That gave us a little time, and I was able to practice blocking it, but eventually I fell asleep, and…well, I never saw Adar again. I hope he’s made it safely home to the Passes now, after ten years’ rest, but I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you do it again, though?” the theurgist asked.

“Oh, I did,” Teneria said. “Several times, with several different warlocks, working with several other witches, including Kirris here. We kept it secret, though, because if word got out that there was a way for witches to prevent the Calling, or even just delay it – well, the most likely outcome was that witches would all find themselves enslaved by desperate warlocks, forced to devote every waking moment to fending off the Call. Remember, warlocks were far, far more powerful than any witch; even a mere apprentice warlock could stop a witch’s heart in an instant. Our magic is more subtle and more varied, but warlocks had more than enough raw power to smash through any defenses we might devise.”

“But you saved a few?” Corinal asked. “Or were there further difficulties?”

“Oh, there were very definitely further difficulties,” Teneria said. “First off, we had to work in shifts, so that we could sleep – an exhausted witch can’t work magic. Further, the Call was so powerful that a witch could only protect one warlock at a time, so it took two or more witches to guard a single warlock. We conducted several trials, using various approaches, but we couldn’t find any way to do better than that – two witches taking turns to protect one warlock. We couldn’t allow the warlock to go even a few miles closer to Aldagmor, or the Call would strengthen enough that we couldn’t fight it, so our movements were limited; one of us had to be near the warlock every instant. Witchcraft only works at close range, you know – it’s not like wizards casting spells that take effect a hundred leagues away.”

“But it worked?” Corinal asked.

“No, it didn’t,” Teneria said. “Because even though we were blocking the Call, it grew stronger and stronger, and harder and harder to block – a Called warlock is so receptive to the Call that he doesn’t need to use any perceptible magic to become even more receptive. It’s like a hole in a dike – a dike may hold back the sea indefinitely, but if a hole is made, then the water rushes through it and enlarges it until the entire dike washes away. We tried drawing on the warlocks’ own power to strengthen our witchcraft, but then the warlock’s susceptibility to the Calling increased even more quickly. We tried adding more witches, and that helped for a time, but…well, that was when we discovered the real problem with our efforts.”

“And what was that?” Corinal asked.

“We started to hear the Call,” Teneria said. “Our connection to the warlocks’ minds became so strong that the Calling began to draw us, as well.” She shuddered. “Fortunately, the moment the connection was broken, we could no longer hear it, any more than anyone else could. None of us were drawn all the way to Aldagmor – Called warlocks don’t take other people with them, and a witch can’t fly that far under her own power – but three or four of us had some very unpleasant experiences.”

“So you couldn’t save any warlocks?” Corinal asked.

“The longest we ever managed to block the Calling was about a month and a half, and that very nearly killed two witches.”

“Why have we never heard about this before?” Arvagan demanded.

“Because it didn’t work, and it wasn’t any of your business,” Teneria said. “We told Ithinia, but we kept it very quiet otherwise. We didn’t want hundreds of desperate warlocks coming to us hoping to be saved.”

“You all know we magicians are accustomed to keeping secrets from each other,” Ithinia said. “Warlocks weren’t very inclined to trust any of the rest of us, either; they remembered the Night of Madness and the days immediately after, when half the city wanted them all killed. It wasn’t hard to make sure they didn’t find out about this. After all, every warlock who was involved in the experiments was in Aldagmor.”

Teneria nodded. “Exactly.”

“So you know what the Calling felt like,” the other theurgist – Samber, that was his name! – said to Teneria. It was not a question.

“Yes.” Teneria shuddered again. “It’s not something you forget. I still have nightmares sometimes, and I’m sure the others do, too.” She glanced at Kirris, who nodded.

“So you can make Vond have those nightmares again, can’t you?” Ithinia said.

“Yes,” Teneria said.

Ithinia saw the witch’s expression, and started to say something else, something sympathetic and encouraging, but Arvagan interrupted her. “But you’d need to be very close to do that, wouldn’t you? Why don’t we wizards use the Lesser Spell of Invaded Dreams to send Vond this false Calling, instead? We don’t need to be nearby.”

“Because it won’t work,” Ithinia said, annoyed. She had seen this instantly, and was irritated that Arvagan had not. It did not make the Guild look good in front of these outsiders when a wizard made stupid suggestions. “You forget – warlockry blocks some spells, including that one. Besides, we would need to relay the images from Teneria’s mind, or the mind of one of the other witches who had been involved, and we’d lose much of the authenticity in the transfer. No, it must be a witch – though we can certainly help her to get close, and provide protective spells while she’s there.”

“You intend to deceive the emperor?” Samber asked.

“I think it would be our best course,” Ithinia said. She smiled. “Unless our uninvited friend kills him.” She gestured toward the corner where Demerchan’s representative had sat.

All that was there now, though, was an empty chair.