The Unwelcome Warlock

Chapter Three

Hanner awoke suddenly to find himself trapped in a mass of humanity, pressed in on all sides by other people. Instinctively, he pushed out with his magic, trying to clear himself a little breathing room, only to find himself pushed in on every side by magic as strong as his own.

He could still hear the Calling, summoning him forward, but the people ahead of him were packed too tightly to move. Maybe if he went around, he thought – around, or over. He tried to move himself upward, and was able burst free. He was still in the midst of a crowd, but no longer in danger of being crushed.

The Call wanted him to come to it, but there was something else, something new, coming from somewhere overhead, something that let him know the Call was already answered. He tried to make sense of that.When he looked up, he could see only a swarm of flying warlocks against a glowing background, a background that he could not see properly even when there was no one in the way.

What was going on?

He was vaguely aware of screaming, of human voices calling on all sides.

What was going on? He tried to remember how he had gotten here, wherever “here” was. He had been in Arvagan’s shop; he had looked over the tapestry he had ordered, and then he had stepped through it into the refuge, and the Calling had stopped. He had looked around, taken a leisurely stroll on legs he hadn’t used properly for years, and then he had stepped back out, into the attic of Warlock House -

And the Calling had caught him off-guard, and he had flown away to Aldagmor. He had a vague memory of soaring over the city wall and out past the trade villages and farm markets, past farms and across the Great River, over more farms, and grassland, and forest, and hills, and then he had come swooping down, and there had been something ahead of him, but he didn’t bother to look, and…and here he was.

What happened?

In all the hours he had spent trying to imagine what the source of the Calling might be, he had never pictured being packed in a great mass of people, like seeds in a pod. Had the people somehow generated the magical summons? But that didn’t match the images everyone had seen on the Night of Madness, or in their dreams once they began to feel the Call.

He needed to get clear, to see what was happening. Ordinarily he would have gone up, but that great glowing thing that filled the sky worried him. Instead, he veered sideways.

That glowing thing – was that the source of the Calling, the source of warlockry?

No, he could sense that it wasn’t. The Calling came from below; the answer to it came from the glowing thing. He flew sideways, slipping through narrow gaps in the tangle of limbs around him, looking for clear air.

And then the Call stopped, and his magic disappeared, and he found himself falling. He stretched out his arms to catch himself, and collided with a woman, but she was falling, too; he bounced from her to someone else, and then to other people, but they were all falling, they had all lost their magic.

He landed heavily on a pile of bodies, and someone else immediately landed on top of him, knocking the breath from his lungs. Hanner flung up his hands to shield his head.

The Calling was gone, just as it had been in the refuge the wizards had made for him. Could something have transported them all into another world?

People were still screaming, and he could feel the people around him writhing and struggling to get free of the immense heap of fallen bodies, but the volume of sound was less now – Hanner no longer heard or felt the thump of more people landing atop him.

But then there was a new sound, and a vibration, a shaking, like nothing he had ever felt before. He tried to turn, to see what was happening, and someone slid aside just in time to give him a view of the sky, and of that huge glowing thing that hung above them all. Thus he saw the other thing as it rose up from below, pulled up out of the ground by its airborne companion.

He recognized it. He had seen it in his dreams, and especially in his nightmares, for years, though he could never have described it or put a name to it. This was the thing that had fallen out of the sky on the Night of Madness, the thing that had plunged, fiery and screaming, down into the earth, blasting a great pit into the heart of Aldagmor. The pit had fallen in on it, the fire had damaged it, and it had been trapped there.

It had called for help. It had sent out a magical shout that kept repeating endlessly. Hanner knew that – he had been Called, and now that the Calling had stopped and he could think clearly again, he understood what he had heard. It had never been clear so long as he was able to resist its pull, but once he had come here and heard it clearly, close up, he understood, even though the message had not been in words, nor even really in human concepts. He was able to interpret it, translate it into images and ideas he understood; they might not be exactly right, but they were close.

The thing had called for help, and because it was not from the World, not from this entire universe, it had needed to call so very loudly that its call resonated in certain human minds. Some of those humans had immediately obeyed, their will overwhelmed by the demand that whoever heard the Call must come and help; others had been able to take the sheer power of the Call and shape it with their own will, using it to perform magic.

But the more they had used that power, the more they had become attuned to it, until at last they received the message and had to obey.

The message wasn’t meant for humans, though, and humans could do nothing to help the trapped thing. Instead, they ran into the defenses it had set up to protect itself while it waited. The thing had not wanted to stay awake down there, trapped, frightened, and alone, until rescue came; it had cast a protective spell, put itself into a timeless, dreamless sleep, and anything that came too close to it was trapped in the same spell, frozen into unconsciousness and immobility.

Now help had finally come, the help it had been calling for all along. The protective spell was broken, and the signal the trapped creature had been sending had stopped.

What’s more, it was no longer trapped; its rescuer had pulled it free, scattering the warlocks that had covered it in all directions. As Hanner watched, the thing that had been the source of all warlockry was pulled up to join its rescuer, and then both of them rose, ascending and accelerating, until they dwindled amid the stars.

Behind them, strewn across this valley in southeastern Aldagmor, they left thousands of people who had once been warlocks.

Hanner watched the two monstrous things vanish, then realized he was kneeling on somebody. His first instinctive response was to try to fly, to get off whoever it was, but of course he couldn’t – the Call had ended, and the source of warlockry was gone.

The warlocks remained, though, and Hanner could hear them calling, groaning, and crying on all sides. He turned, and tried to see where he was, where the shortest route to the ground might be.

“This way!” someone called – a woman, not a voice he recognized. “There’s room over here!”

Hanner scrambled in the direction of the voice, mumbling, “Excuse me, I’m sorry, please, I’m sorry,” as he clambered over the bodies of his fallen comrades, many of whom were now trying to free themselves, as well.

So far every body he had put a hand or foot or knee on had felt warm and alive, but Hanner was beginning to realize that some people must have died, must have dashed their brains out or broken their necks when they hit the ground, or been smothered or crushed by the people on top of them. There were hundreds of people here; he couldn’t tell how many, really, but from what he saw and heard it had to be at least hundreds.

There might be more deaths to come, as well. As he moved out of the press of bodies he could feel the night air, and it was cold, cold enough, Hanner thought, for unprotected people to die of exposure.

They were somewhere in Aldagmor, in a valley in the mountains of Sardiron; how cold did it get here? What time of year was it? He had been Called in early summer, and this was definitely not early summer. He looked up, but all he could tell from that was that it was night. The greater moon was a half-circle in the western sky, but other than providing a little light that didn’t help.

He couldn’t really see much of anything in the dimness; his eyes had not yet adjusted after the glowing thing’s departure. He was crawling on all fours, finding his way by feel more than by sight, and his left hand finally came down not on cloth or flesh, but on cold, damp grass – not the soft grass of a lawn, but the rough, scratchy grass of the wilderness. He pulled himself onto it, then got to his feet and looked around.

He was surrounded by shadowy forms – people were standing, or kneeling, or crawling on all sides. He wished he could hold up his hand and make light, as he had so often in the past, but his magic was gone. It had vanished with the Calling, and the source had flown away, gone forever. The World had once again changed suddenly, without warning, just as it had on the Night of Madness, when warlockry had first come into being, and just as it had then, the change had brought chaos.

Someone needed to take charge here. If no one brought some order out of this chaos, more people would die needlessly.

“Hai!” he shouted. “I am Hanner, Chairman of the Council of Warlocks! If you’re unhurt, please get to clear ground and stand up, and then help those who aren’t so fortunate!” He glanced around. “Does anyone have a tinderbox, by any chance, or some other way to make a light?”

This was greeted by a chorus of questions. “Hanner?”

“Who?”

“Lord Hanner?”

Hanner grimaced; at least some of them recognized his name.

Someone behind him, a woman, shouted, “Listen to him! If you can give us light, do it! If you can’t, help spread everyone out – there are still people in danger of being crushed!” Hanner thought it was the same woman who had called out a few moments earlier directing people. He looked about, trying to spot her, and at the same time he tried to direct people away from the central pit, out to safer, more open areas.

“This way!” he called.

Then, at last, a light flared up. For an instant Hanner wondered why it had taken so long, but then he realized – these were warlocks. Powerful warlocks, strong enough to be Called. Up until a few minutes ago, they hadn’t needed flint and steel to make fire; they had magic that could set an entire house ablaze in an instant.

That realization left him wondering why anyone did have a tinderbox; he peered toward the light.

The man holding a torch was no one Hanner recognized; he was not dressed in traditional warlock black, but in the yellow tunic and red kilt of a guardsman. Hanner briefly wondered whether the Hegemony had sent guardsmen to Aldagmor, but then dismissed the idea – Aldagmor was one of the Baronies of Sardiron, outside the Hegemony entirely, and any guards sent here who got this close would have been Called.

But there was one obvious explanation – this man must have been Called on the Night of Madness, seventeen years ago!

But…was it seventeen years? Or was it more? Hanner knew that he had been Called in Longdays of 5219, but he didn’t know how long he had been trapped by that protective spell. Certainly, not all of these people had arrived in a few sixnights, and Hanner had not been on the outside of the great mass of trapped warlocks. He might have been there for a year or more!

That soldier had probably been here since 5202. No other explanation made sense.

“You!” Hanner called. “Bring that light over here!”

The guardsman looked uncertain, but he came, holding the torch high. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Who are you?”

Calling himself Chairman of the Council probably wouldn’t mean anything to this man; if Hanner was right, he had been in Aldagmor since before the Council was created. Still, Hanner thought he knew a name the man would recognize and respect. “I’m Lord Faran’s nephew,” he said. “I’ll explain the rest later – I’m sure there are a lot of people here who don’t understand. For now, we just need to make sure everyone’s safe.”

“Lord Faran? From Ethshar of the Spices?”

That caught Hanner off-guard. “Yes, from Ethshar of the Spices,” he said. “Where are you from?”

“Ethshar of the Rocks.”

“Ah. Well, we’re in Aldagmor, in the Baronies of Sardiron, right now, so I don’t think it matters which of the three Ethshars we’re from. Here, see if you can get more torches lit without setting the grass on fire – it’s cold and dark, and some of these people may be in trouble. We need light, and we can probably use the heat, too.”

“Yes, my lord,” the soldier said, raising a hand in acknowledgment. He turned toward the heart of the crowd.

Hanner, on the other hand, was still heading away from the center, to make room, to get some breathing space, and to see if he could find a better vantage point. He was also looking for the woman who had been shouting. The more level-headed helpers he could find, the better. As he moved he pushed people in various directions, trying to get them spread out, and kept calling instructions.

“Chairman Hanner!” someone called, and there she was, the woman who had been shouting. She was a little on the short side and appeared to be at least fifty; her hair was graying and her face lined. He felt a twinge of jealousy; he hadn’t made it to fifty before being Called, but only into his late thirties, despite trying to avoid doing any strong magic.

He hadn’t been very successful at avoiding it. His position as chairman had required him to use magic sometimes, and his own natural tendency toward sloth had contributed as well – it was so much easier to fly than to walk, or to use magic rather than arms and legs to lift and carry. A warlock spark was so much more convenient than flint and steel, and making the air glow worked better than a lantern. Especially when his children were young and constantly demanding attention, warlockry had just been so handy that he had used it constantly, even though he knew he was inviting the Calling.

He had thought the Calling meant death. He smiled wryly. It seemed they had all been wrong about that part.

In fact, remembering the soldier and looking around, he wondered just how many warlocks had actually died in all those years. Not many, he guessed. Warlocks didn’t die of old age; they were always Called first. They generally didn’t die of disease or injury, either; their magic could be used to heal. A few had managed to get themselves killed, by other magicians or by assassins, but most had been Called and vanished into the mysterious depths of Aldagmor.

“Hai,” he said. “Who are you?”

“My name is Sensella of Morningside,” the woman replied. “I was Called about a day and a half ago.”

“I’m sure we all think it’s just been a day or two -” Hanner began.

“No, Chairman,” Sensella said, interrupting him. “I never reached the…the…that pile. I got here the same time that big glowing thing did. I wasn’t caught in the guarding spell the way everyone else was.”

“Oh? Then I’ll want to talk to you, but for now I think we need to concentrate on everyone’s safety. We need to get them out of that…where the thing…”

“Out of the pit,” Sensella said. “I agree. What can I do to help?”

Hanner turned to look and assess the situation. Things seemed to be more under control now; he no longer heard actual screams, though there were still shouting voices, and someone was crying somewhere.

“We’ll need fires to keep everyone warm,” Hanner said. “Shelter, and water, and food. Are there any farms nearby?”

Sensella looked at him with an expression he hoped to never see again, as if he had not merely failed her, but had failed her so stupidly it amounted to betrayal. “Chairman, we’re in Aldagmor,” she said. “No one has lived within miles of this place for thirty years!”

“Thirty?”

“More, really. Thirty-four. You were Called a long time ago.”

A sudden realization burst upon him. “But my wife…”

Hanner was interrupted by a sudden blaze of light. As he turned he thought at first that that fool soldier had started a grass fire, but then he saw just how bright the light was, and that it was coming from somewhere high up, and he thought that perhaps that glowing thing had returned.

Then he saw the black-robed man hanging in mid-air, glowing like a bit of the sun, and his mouth fell open.

“I don’t understand,” Sensella said from beside him. “I thought the magic was all gone!”

“Our magic is gone,” Hanner said. “This is something else.”

“A wizard, maybe?”

Before Hanner could reply the glowing man spoke, and his voice was magically amplified until it was as loud as thunder.

“I am the Emperor Vond,” the apparition said, his words rolling across the crowd and echoing from the surrounding hills. “I am the absolute master of the southernmost part of the Small Kingdoms, and as you can see, I alone, out of us all, am still a warlock. It is by my magic that I built my empire, and by my magic that I rule. I am going to return to my realm now, and I wish to return in a manner befitting my station – with an honor guard. Any of you who swear fealty to me will accompany me to my empire, where you will be given positions of authority under my rule. If you wish to join me, simply raise your hands above your head!”

“By all the gods,” Hanner said. “Who is that? What’s he talking about?”

“Don’t raise your hands,” Sensella said. “I’ll explain later.”

Hanner had no good reason to trust Sensella, but he had no reason to trust this Vond, either; he kept his hands by his sides.

Hundreds of others, though, were less restrained, and as each pair of hands rose, the owner of those hands rose as well, soaring up into the sky to hover a dozen feet below the self-proclaimed emperor.

Others shouted questions or protests in a variety of languages, but Vond ignored them; he simply lifted his new followers skyward, one by one.

After about eighty or ninety, by Hanner’s estimate, they began to rise less steadily, and not as quickly; he guessed that this Vond was reaching the limits of his power. Not long after, people stopped rising at all; the remaining raised hands were ignored.

“Farewell,” Vond said, his voice booming out in a thoroughly unnatural fashion.

And then he, and his hundred or so volunteers, flew away southward, leaving Hanner, Sensella, and thousands of others in the cold darkness of Aldagmor.