The Unwelcome Warlock

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Zallin stared at the tapestry in the fourth-floor bedroom, but kept his distance. He did not understand exactly how the spell worked, and had no intention of getting close enough to risk suddenly learning more.

Vond had vanished through that thing, and had left Zallin in charge in his absence – but he hadn’t given Zallin any magic, and how was he supposed to be in charge without magic? He wasn’t a lord, with a family history of authority. He wasn’t a guardsman, with weapons and training in giving orders. Zallin had only ever had the ability to command anything when he was a warlock. If Vond had made him a warlock again…

But Vond hadn’t given anyone access to his new kind of warlockry. He had claimed that he would, in time, but he hadn’t yet. He had gone adventuring off through the tapestry without giving anyone the means to keep order in his absence.

In fact, Zallin was beginning think Vond would never teach anyone else to use the Lumeth source. He would keep dangling it just out of reach.

Zallin was also beginning to wonder whether he really even wanted his magic back, if it was conditional on being Vond’s underling. He wanted to be a warlock again, yes, very much, but he wanted to be the kind of warlock he had always been – a respected magician, a normal part of Ethshar’s society, someone people hired to do things that could not be done without magic. He didn’t want to be a servant to a madman who was terrorizing the city, feuding with witches and wizards and antagonizing the overlord.

Most of all, he didn’t want to hurt anybody.

He had seen Vond throwing people around. He had seen the palace hanging in the air above the city. Vond didn’t care who he hurt, or what damage he did. Zallin did not consider himself a soft-hearted weakling – when he happened to observe a thief’s flogging, he had applauded justice being done, and he didn’t regret seeing murderers hanged. That was all part of the way the World worked. The sort of casual violence that Vond displayed, though, was not justice, it was brutality. Claiming Warlock House for his own, ordering everyone out – it wasn’t right.

Zallin had stayed on, putting up with Vond’s behavior, tolerating his…his evil, in hopes of getting his own warlockry back, but now that he had had time to do some serious thinking about this, and some serious drinking to try to make it work out, he was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that if serving Vond was required to be a warlock again, it wasn’t worth it. Not even if the oushka held out, which didn’t look likely.

Right now Vond was on the other side of that tapestry, but he might reappear at any time and start ordering Zallin to run his errands again, and Zallin did not want to run the emperor’s errands.

Sterren had not wanted to serve Vond anymore, so he had simply disappeared. He had taken his luggage and vanished into the city streets. Vond had complained and called Sterren a traitor, but he had not done anything about it. He had not gone looking for Sterren, or demanded his return. Several of the other former warlocks who had initially pledged to obey Vond had also quietly slipped away. No one had wanted to be purser or envoy for the emperor; they had wanted to be warlocks. When it began to look as if, despite his promises, Vond wasn’t ever going to permit that, they had left.

If Zallin disappeared in the same fashion, would Vond do anything more? Zallin could not see why he would. Vond didn’t care about him; Vond didn’t care about anyone but himself. He wanted a few people around to run his errands, but he didn’t care whether it was Sterren, or Hanner, or Zallin, or Gerath who ran them, just so long as someone did.

In fact, now that he had his band of sword-wielding hirelings, Vond would probably find Zallin more of a nuisance than a help, and anyone Vond considered a nuisance was likely to wind up injured or dead. Zallin thought bitterly that Vond’s chief bully-boy Gerath was more likely to become a new warlock than he was.

The time had come, Zallin decided, to get out, while he had the chance. He turned and headed for the stairs.

A few moments later he was in the room he had been using since Vond usurped the master’s chamber, where he was gathering his belongings into bags and bundles. The entire time he was packing he was listening nervously for sounds from upstairs, for any hint that Vond had returned. He was ready to make a run for it without his baggage, if necessary.

But it wasn’t necessary. He was able to get everything vital stowed into two bags, a large one he slung over his shoulder, and a small one he carried in his other hand. The rest he shoved into the empty closet, in case he ever had a chance to retrieve it. Half an hour after reaching his decision to leave he was in the front hall, wrapped in his winter coat and with a broad-brimmed hat pulled down to his ears, reaching for the door.

That was when someone knocked, startling him so badly he dropped his bags. He stood frozen, staring at the white-painted wood.

When nothing more happened he glanced into the parlor, then peered into the dining room, and saw no one. He knew most of Hanner’s guests had fled, and Vond’s hirelings were all upstairs, but he was still somewhat startled to see no one else around. Uncertainly, he reached out and opened the door.

A young woman was standing on the front step, and while Zallin knew immediately that he had seen her before, it took a moment to place her. Eventually, though, he realized that this was the whore Vond had brought back from Camptown. She was wearing a long cloak that was entirely appropriate for the weather, but which hid her bright clothing and made identification more difficult. “Yes?” Zallin said.

“Hanner told me to come back for my pay,” she said. “Well, actually, he told me to go find his sister at the overlord’s palace, but I’m not about to swim out to that sandbar and try climbing up the stone. So I’m here, and I want my money.”

“Hanner isn’t here,” Zallin said. “At least, I don’t think he is.”

“Hanner isn’t the one who owes me,” she said. “That skinny warlock who calls himself an emperor is.”

“He’s not here, either,” Zallin began.

“You are,” she snapped. “And you were with him in Camptown, too. I saw you. You started to talk to me.”

“Yes, I remember,” Zallin said.

“So you can pay me.”

Zallin closed his eyes. He did not need this right now. He wanted to get out of Warlock House and away from High Street before Vond reappeared. He opened his eyes again and said, “I wasn’t the one who hired you.”

“You work for him.”

“But I don’t -”

She cut him off. “You know what? I don’t care who you are, or what you do. You’re here in the warlock’s house. You can pay me, or you can find someone who’ll pay me, or I can start screaming for the city guard – and in case you hadn’t noticed, there are at least a dozen guardsmen in the street out front. Which will it be?”

“Fine,” Zallin said, reaching for his smaller bag. He had packed up a good bit of the Council’s treasury – not all of it, because he did not want Vond labeling him a thief and finding additional motive to look for him, but more than half, since after all, no one other than himself knew how much money had been there to begin with. It wouldn’t be missed, as long as he left a believable sum. “How much?”

“Five rounds.”

Zallin closed his eyes again, and sighed. He did not bother to doubt her; Vond had almost certainly agreed to her price, no matter how outrageous it was. After all, he didn’t intend to actually earn his money; he would simply take it, since no one could stop him.

“I’m waiting,” the woman said.

“Yes,” Zallin said, opening his bag and digging for a purse. A moment later he counted forty bits into the woman’s waiting hand. He had to stop after twenty, though, so she could transfer the money to a purse of her own, somewhere under that heavy brown cloak; forty was more than she could hold in both palms.

When he had finished he tucked the purse away, and when he looked up again the whore was grinning at him. “Thank you,” she said. “I was beginning to wonder whether I’d ever really get it.”

“Well, you did,” Zallin said, picking up his baggage. “I wouldn’t suggest coming back for another night, though. I’m leaving, and I think Hanner’s already gone, and no one else around here is likely to keep his Imperial Majesty honest.”

“I wasn’t planning to come back,” she said. “Oh, it was quite an experience, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it, but he’s crazy and he’s dangerous.”

Zallin nodded. “Yes, he is.”

“He smashed right through the ceiling when I was here, and hung naked in the air. It was amazing.”

“So I heard.”

She looked at his bags. “You’re leaving? Where are you going?”

Zallin opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again. He frowned. “I don’t really know,” he admitted.

“I know a cheap inn in Eastgate. I can show you.”

“That sounds as good a place as any. Thanks.” He slung the larger bag over his shoulder, and together the two of them marched out the door onto High Street.

As they walked eastward they chatted idly, their breath visible in the chilly air. Zallin finally managed to remember the woman’s name, Leth of Pawnbroker Lane. He had been drunk when he heard it before, but it came back eventually.

“When Vond and I were in Camptown,” Zallin remarked, “most people were avoiding us – with good reason. Why didn’t you?”

“There was money to be made,” she said. She hefted the fat purse under her cloak to emphasize her point. “Throwing people around reduced the competition.”

“Weren’t you worried it would reduce your lifespan, as well?”

She turned up an empty palm. “Not really,” she said. “I knew he wouldn’t kill me.”

“How?”

She gave him a sideways glance, then said, “Do you really want to know?”

Zallin hesitated, but curiosity triumphed. “Yes, I do,” he said.

Leth nodded. “All right, then. About ten years ago, when I was a little girl, I got sick – seriously sick, to the point my mother expected me to die. She hired a wizard named Orzavar the Seer to advise her – in fact, she sold our house on Pawnbroker Lane to pay him, and to pay the healer he sent her to. I hope she thought it was worth it – she said she did, but you know how parents are.”

“Of course,” Zallin lied. He knew his parents wouldn’t have sold their house to pay a magician to help him. “But I don’t see the connection.”

“Well, since she was already giving up everything to pay the seer and the healer, she wanted to be sure it would work, and she asked a few other questions. Orzavar informed her that I was going to die peacefully in my sleep at the age of eighty-one. He swore it, by several gods and by his magic – he wasn’t just trying to comfort her. So I don’t worry about getting killed.”

“Oh,” Zallin said.

“I can still get hurt, of course,” Leth said conversationally. “But Vond didn’t look interested in hurting people just for the sake of hurting them – I’ve known men like that, and he didn’t seem to be one of them. If he did throw me around – well, I knew I’d survive.”

They walked on in silence for a moment as Zallin absorbed this, and then he asked, “What happened to your mother?”

“She was murdered a sixnight later,” Leth said. “With the house gone, we were sleeping in the Hundred-Foot Field, and she didn’t hide what was left of her money well enough. That’s why I’ve been walking the streets in Camptown.”

That matter-of-fact little biography horrified Zallin. He remembered his own mother, who was still alive – or at least, she had been a month ago.

“What about your father?” he asked.

“I have no idea who he is. My mother never said. Well, when I was very little she said he was a sailor by the name of Kelder who was lost at sea, and maybe he really was, but I don’t know.”

“No other family?”

“No other family. What about you?”

“I grew up in Westwark, with three older brothers,” Zallin said. “Everyone thought I was magical because of my eyes, so I decided I might as well be magical, and apprenticed myself to old Feregris the Warlock. I haven’t seen my family much since, and after Feregris was Called…” He stopped in mid-sentence, blinking.

“Feregris was Called?” Leth prompted, after they had gone another half-dozen paces in silence. “You were saying?”

“He must be back now,” Zallin said. “Feregris, I mean. It’s been almost twenty years, but he must be back. All the Called came back.”

“You think so?” Leth asked.

Zallin stopped walking. They were in the short block of High Street between Arena Street and Fishertown Street, just across the line from the New City into Allston, and the tall houses on either side gleamed golden in the early morning sun. “We’re going the wrong way,” he said.

“Not if we’re headed to Eastgate,” Leth said.

“I’m going to Crookwall,” Zallin said. “I want to see if Feregris is back.”

“He lived in Crookwall? Not the Wizards’ Quarter?”

“In Crookwall,” Zallin said. “On Incidental Street. When I was twelve I didn’t dare go as far as the Wizards’ Quarter, and Feregris was the only magician in Crookwall or Westwark.”

“You said it’s been twenty years,” Leth pointed out. “Would he still have a place there?”

“He had a daughter.”

Leth nodded. “If she’s still there it’s worth asking her, anyway.”

“If Feregris is there – he was good to me. I want to be sure he’s all right.”

“That’s kind of you.”

Zallin blinked. No one had called him “kind” for as long as he could remember. No one had been kind to him, either, that he could recall.

But then, he hadn’t done much to deserve kindness. Ever since he lost his magic he had been so focused on getting it back that he had not given much thought to anything else. He had followed Vond around, begging for his magic like a puppy hoping for a treat. He had ignored or argued with Hanner, who had merely tried to talk sense to him. He had treated all the other Called warlocks as a nuisance, something to be pushed aside as much as possible.

He remembered Feregris smiling patiently at him, surprising him with candies every so often, showing him clever little things a warlock could do, ways to accomplish his goals with a minimum of power, so as not to hasten the Calling. Those tricks hadn’t been enough to save his master, though. By the time Zallin completed his apprenticeship, Feregris was having nightmares almost every night, and had a tendency to turn his face northward whenever he wasn’t paying attention. Two months later he was gone.

That had hurt, losing his master. Feregris’ daughter Virris had wanted no reminders of her father’s magic, and had asked Zallin to stop visiting, and he had complied. He did not particularly want to be reminded of his loss, either; he had stopped visiting anywhere in Westwark or Crookwall.

Then he had set out to be the best warlock he could be, to prove himself worthy of his master’s memory, and he had worked his way up until he became Chairman of the Council of Warlocks. He had used Feregris’ old tricks to avoid using too much magic, so he had never been Called.

But then he had lost his magic, and he had tried to find a new master, in the form of the Great Vond.

Zallin mentally compared Feregris with Vond, and then his own behavior with both. He did not think he fared well against Feregris at all, but at least he wasn’t as bad as Vond.

Not quite as bad as Vond, anyway.

His magic was gone; he had finally accepted that. Now he had to think about what he was going to do without it – not just how he might earn a living, but who he was going to be.

Being more like Feregris would be a good start, and finding Feregris, offering to help him, was the first step of that start. He looked at Leth, and held out a hand. “It was a pleasure talking to you,” he said, “but I’m going the other direction.”

“Oh, I don’t have any business in Eastgate if you aren’t going there,” Leth said. “I’ll come along, if you don’t mind.”

Zallin was startled. “You don’t want to get home to Camptown?”

“Not particularly. Meeting this Feregris and your family sounds much more interesting.”

“I wasn’t…I mean, I didn’t say anything about my family.”

“If you’re going to Crookwall, Westwark’s just a few blocks farther.”

Zallin hesitated, looking down at the bright red skirt showing beneath her coat that indicated Leth’s occupation. Then he smiled.

Being more like his old master didn’t mean he had to be the obedient little boy his mother and brother had tried to make him be. “You’ll like my mother,” he said.

“I will?”

“Oh, yes. Everyone does. But she’ll hate you.”

Leth grinned. “Sounds like fun,” she said. “Let’s go.”

They turned and walked west.