The Unwelcome Warlock

Chapter Five

Hanner looked out at the torchlit thousands of people sitting huddled on the grass, stretching out hundreds of yards in every direction, most of them shivering from the cold – as yet, no one had gathered fuel for proper campfires.

“Water is probably the most urgent need,” he said, “but if we don’t get some sort of shelter, some of the older people may freeze.”

“It’s too bad there isn’t any snow,” Sensella said. “We could use that for water and shelter.”

“We can’t stay here, either,” Hanner added. “There’s no food.”

“That’s true.” She looked around at the dark surrounding hills. “There were farms here once, I believe.”

“There were,” a young man said from just behind her elbow, speaking Ethsharitic with a thick Sardironese accent. “My family’s farm was just over there.” He pointed. “We grew wheat and beans, mostly.”

Hanner said, “You’re from Aldagmor?”

“Yes,” the young man said. “I’m Rayel Roggit’s son.”

“It must be a shock, waking up to find your home gone,” Hanner said.

Rayel shuddered. “My home, and more than thirty years, gone in the blink of an eye! I was in bed, and I had this strange nightmare, and I thought I heard something like thunder but I wasn’t sure because I was still asleep, and then the next thing I know I’m jammed in among my family and my neighbors down at the bottom of a pit in the dark, and everyone’s screaming and crying and we can’t breathe, and when we get out – those of us who did; I’m pretty sure my brother died in there – we find this.”

“I’m sorry about your brother,” Sensella said.

Rayel shook his head. “It doesn’t seem real. He can’t be dead, but I didn’t see him get out.”

Hanner nodded, then said, “If you’re from around here, then you must know where we can find water.”

“We had a well, but I think it must have fallen in years ago. There’s a stream half a mile that way, though.” He pointed to the southeast.

“Thank you.” He had already sent people out looking for water, so he did not rush to send more. It wasn’t as if they had buckets in which to fetch it back; the closest thing to a bucket he had found so far was a soldier’s helmet. There were about a dozen guardsmen, and half of them still had their helmets; he had sent that half-dozen out with the water-seekers.

It could have been worse. Most of the throng spoke Ethsharitic, and most of the rest spoke Sardironese, so they could communicate fairly well. Hanner thought it was fortunate, in a way, that the thing, whatever it was, had been trapped in Aldagmor, where the population of the surrounding area for a dozen leagues in every direction spoke only those two languages. If it had landed in the linguistic chaos of the Small Kingdoms, no one would have been able to organize this mob. As it was, the more varied areas were far enough away that they had produced few warlocks.

Also, there were few children to worry about, and those few generally had parents with them – almost the entire population of Aldagmor as of the Night of Madness had been in that pit, but outside the immediate area the Calling had mostly drawn adults. A few older children had been caught, but only a few.

There were a good many older people, but most were in excellent health – thanks to their magical healing, warlocks were not subject to the sort of accumulated damage that most people acquired over the years. As with children, there were a few drawn here on the Night of Madness; they had never consciously been warlocks, and had therefore never had a chance to heal themselves of time’s wounds.

For the most part, though, the throng of former warlocks was disproportionately made up of unusually fit adults in their middle years.

Even so, Hanner and Sensella had agreed that once the sun was up, they all needed to get moving, to get out of this isolated valley and back to civilization. Even if they had tools, even if they had time to raise crops before they starved, this place couldn’t support so many people. They needed to find food for all these thousands of hungry mouths.

What was happening out there in the rest of the World? It seemed certain that warlockry had vanished everywhere – but that left the mystery of Emperor Vond. Some of the later arrivals had given Hanner a very brief account of who Vond was, but no one had a good explanation of why he had been so extraordinarily powerful, why he had been able to conquer a dozen of the Small Kingdoms, and why he apparently still had his magic. Was it really warlockry, or something else?

Hanner knew that on the Night of Madness other sorts of magicians had become warlocks; he had known some of them personally. Even as powerful a wizard as Manrin the Mage, a Guildmaster, had been affected. Hanner wished old Manrin were here, but Manrin hadn’t been Called; he had been executed by the Wizards’ Guild for breaking Guild rules.

So maybe Vond had some other sort of magic, and had warlockry on top of it, and even with warlockry gone he had still had the other sort – but what sort was it? Did anyone else have it?

Did anyone else here have any magic? A witch or a wizard might be very handy right now.

“Hai!” he called. “Is anyone here a magician other than a warlock? Are there any wizards or witches or sorcerers, or people who used to be?”

No one responded immediately, but the question was passed on through the crowd, and a few minutes later a handful of people made their way to Hanner’s side. To his surprise, he recognized one of them, though she was older than he remembered. “Alladia of Shiphaven?”

“Yes, Chairman.” She was staring at him, and he realized he was probably staring, as well. “You do know that you were Called ten years before I was, don’t you?”

“I do now,” he said. “And…you were a witch?”

“No, a priestess,” she said.

“That’s right, I’m sorry. It’s been a long time.”

“It has,” she agreed. “So long that I don’t know if I can remember a single invocation properly. I don’t know if I still have any of the talent at all.”

“Could you try?” Hanner asked. “Is there a god who will feed the hungry, or provide warmth, or water?”

“Of course. Piskor the Generous can provide food and water – though perhaps not for this large a multitude. Tarma or Konned could keep us warm.” She frowned. “I don’t remember how to summon Konned at all. Piskor – I think I remember part of it. It has the standard opening for her class of deity, and ends with awir ligo…No, awir thigo lan takkoz wesfir yu. But I’m not sure of the rest.”

“Do your best,” Hanner said. “Maybe you can find other theurgists.”

“I’m a theurgist.” A man Hanner did not recognize stepped forward. “I haven’t been…I mean, I came here on that first night. I don’t have my scrolls or anything, but I remember my spells.”

“Good! Then the two of you can work on that. Anyone else?”

“I’m a witch,” a man said, struggling to get the words out. Hanner had not noticed immediately in the dim, flaring torchlight, but now he saw that the man was exhausted, his face drawn, unsteady on his feet. “I’ve been trying to heal some of the injured.”

“And you’re killing yourself in the process, aren’t you?” Hanner asked.

The man turned up an empty palm. “I had to try. There are…there are more of us, and I was resting, so when your call came -”

“Thank you,” Hanner said. “Healing is probably the best thing for you witches to do, but please, don’t do too much. I know witchcraft drains your strength. Please, sit down, rest.” He gestured, and two nearby men helped the witch to seat himself on the trampled grass. Then Hanner raised his voice. “Who else?”

“I am Thand the Wizard,” someone answered. He wore a nightshirt,and shivered as if he was freezing in the cold night air. “But I came here straight from my bed; I don’t have any of the ingredients I would need for my spells.”

“I have my…my dagger,” a woman in a green wizard’s robe said, “because I was out late that night, but I didn’t bring anything else. If we can find the right plants or stones, we might be able to work a few simple spells.”

“But I don’t have my book,” Thand said. “Even with the ingredients, I can’t do much without it.”

“I was a wizard before I was a warlock,” an old man said, “but I had to forsake wizardry and leave the Guild. I don’t think wizardry is going to do us much good here. None of us have our books of spells, and only those who were Called immediately on the Night of Madness can do any magic at all.”

“I’m a demonologist,” a woman volunteered, “but if you think I’m going to summon a demon here, without any wards or safeguards, without my books and contracts, you’re mad.”

“A demon probably wouldn’t help much in any case,” Hanner said.

“I’m a dancer,” another woman said, glancing about uncertainly, “but we’d need at least eight people, and I’m not sure what we could do.”

Hanner could not think of anything to say to her; he had never been sure ritual dances really worked at all. “Anyone else?”

Others spoke up, but the results were not encouraging.

No one who had learned warlockry as an apprentice knew any other magic, of course, and of those who had become warlocks on the Night of Madness, most had given up their other magic long ago, and completely enough that they could no longer use it at all, even now that warlockry was no longer blocking it.

Those who had been Called on the Night of Madness included representatives of every sort of magic Hanner had ever heard of, but most were fairly useless. Wizards could do almost nothing without their books and tools, though a few could assist in lighting fires.

The witches were all attending to the injured or frightened, and undoubtedly doing considerable good, but did not have the power for anything dramatic.

None of the sorcerers had any useful talismans with them. Most had come directly from their beds and had no talismans at all. A fellow named Senesson of Lordiran had a tiny glass box that glowed like a miniature lantern, and Karitha of Seacorner had a sorcerous weapon that she said could kill a man at twenty paces, but there was no sorcery to provide food or water or shelter.

The herbalists had brought no herbs with them, save for one who found a single bundle of a leaf that would cause gentle sleep in his belt-pouch, and of course their gardens were far away and probably long gone. They could not hope to find anything useful in the dark, but once the sun rose, they might manage something.

As always, the scientists and prestidigitators were no help.

None of the demonologists would attempt anything without the safeguards they had had at home. The ritual dancers seemed more cooperative, but did not immediately agree on what should be done, or how to do it, and at least two of them did not think anything could be done until the sun came up.

The theurgists seemed like the best prospect for providing real help; four or five of them had gathered to summon Piskor, Tarma, and a water-god named Tivei.

None of the magicians could explain Vond’s magic.

“I think it’s something in Lumeth of the Towers,” Sensella volunteered.

Startled, Hanner turned. “What?”

“I think it’s something in Lumeth,” she repeated.

“Why?” Hanner asked.

“Several years ago, after you were Called, the Wizards’ Guild banned all warlocks from Lumeth of the Towers, and everywhere else in a twenty-league radius, and it apparently had something to do with the Empire of Vond.”

“The Wizards’ Guild? Why?”

She turned up both palms. “No one knows; they wouldn’t say. But practicing warlockry anywhere within twenty leagues of Lumeth is punishable by death. They made a big dramatic announcement – a bunch of wizards went all over the southern Small Kingdoms issuing edicts.”

“When was this?”

Sensella had to think for a moment. “5224, maybe? About then. I was living in Ethshar of the Sands, so I didn’t hear about it right away, but I think it was 5224.”

That was five years in the future, as far as Hanner could remember, but he knew it was really a dozen years ago. “But…why?”

Sensella shook her head. “No one knows. Well, no one except the wizards, and you know how they are about keeping secrets.”

Hanner turned to look at the miserable handful of wizards who had come to Aldagmor in their robes and nightshirts. They had all been here since 5202. Even if he could somehow get past the Guild’s secrecy rules, none of them would know anything about events in 5224.

If warlockry had been forbidden in the southern part of the Small Kingdoms, there wouldn’t be anyone here who had been Called from that area after 5224. It seemed as if it was destined to stay a mystery, at least for the present.

However it worked, wherever it came from, Vond’s magic would be no use.

Hanner looked at the sky. The eastern horizon was brightening now. Dawn was almost upon them; that might help. He turned to see how the theurgists were doing, just in time to see a blaze of light. He felt a sudden pressure on his face and in his ears, and blinked. When his eyes opened again a woman was standing before him, a beautiful woman in a green gown and golden crown, thick black hair tumbling down her back, surrounded by a golden glow so intense Hanner could see nothing through it except the woman.

Or rather, the goddess, for there could be little doubt that this was one of the deities the theurgists had wanted to summon. From Hanner’s point of view, though, she was not over near the theurgists, but standing right in front of him, scarcely out of arm’s reach, looking directly at him and speaking directly to him.

You will have food for three days, she said, speaking without sound. The water of the stream will be pure and clean. Because humanity must rely on itself and not upon gods, this is all I will give you until a year has passed. And before that year has passed, you will repay this by giving comfort to one who needs it – a blanket to one who has none, a roof to one who needs it for a night, or a meal to one who has not eaten that day.

Then she was gone, and an excited babble ran through the throng. As he listened, Hanner realized that every person there had seen the goddess as standing before him or her, and addressing him or her directly. And as he looked around, Hanner saw that a cloth-wrapped bundle lay in front of every person in the crowd, including himself. He knelt down and unwrapped his.

The brown stick-things inside were unlike anything he had ever seen before, but when he took a wary nibble of one, he found it tasted sweet and perhaps a little nutty, and had a consistency something like a syrup-covered biscuit. He took a larger bite, chewing carefully. Then he swallowed, and called to the theurgists, “Well done!”

Alladia waved an acknowledgment.

“Well, at least we won’t starve,” Sensella said from behind his right shoulder.

“Not for three days, anyway,” Hanner agreed. “But we’re still stranded out here in the hills of Aldagmor, and if there were ever any roads around here, they’ve had thirty years to fade away.”

“We can find our way by the sun,” Sensella said. “If we head south, we’ll reach civilization eventually.”

“I’m not worried about the direction so much as the terrain,” Hanner said. “What if we need to cross rivers, or climb mountains?”

“Then we’ll wade, or swim, or climb. Hanner, we all thought we were doomed. We thought the Calling was a death sentence, but here we are alive! We have a second chance. We may have to struggle to get there, but we can all go home again, to stay.”

Hanner looked around at the mobs of people.

“Then what?” he said. “There are thousands of people here! And I’m sure many of them don’t have homes to return to. You said it’s been more than thirty years since the Night of Madness. Even those of us who came later can’t go back to our old lives; we made our living off our magic, and now that’s gone.”

“We’ll manage,” Sensella replied. “We have our lives back. Yes, we have problems to overcome, but we have our lives back.”

“Not all of us. I don’t know how many people were crushed to death in that pit, but -”

“Yes, they’re dead,” she agreed, a trifle impatiently. “But we aren’t. I’ll see my children and grandchildren again. Don’t you have any family back home?”

Hanner swallowed. “My wife. Mavi. We have three children – but it’s been seventeen years. They must be grown by now. They must think I deserted them.”

“I’m sure they understand about the Calling,” Sensella said.

“Maybe.” He looked around at the crowds. Most of the former warlocks were eating the divinely-provided food. Guardsmen had returned from the stream and were distributing drinking water in their helmets. The skies had brightened enough that they no longer needed torches for light. “What if we followed the stream south?” he asked. “Then we’d have drinking water for the journey, and it must empty into either the Great River or the sea eventually.”

“Good idea,” Sensella agreed.

Hanner looked east, where the sun was peeking above the horizon. “We should make a start soon. Walking will help people keep warm.” He remembered the dozens of injured the witches were tending. “The stronger men can help carry anyone who’s too badly hurt to walk.”

“You think all of us should stay together? I don’t think the Sardironese or the Srigmorans will want to go south.”

“I’m not going to force anyone,” Hanner said. “I couldn’t if I wanted to. If they want to go north or west, let them, but I intend to head south, and I expect most of the others will, too.”

Sensella did not argue further.

Hanner raised his arms and shouted, “Hai! Everyone! We have food and water now, but we can’t stay here! We need to get back to civilization. I’m going to follow that stream south, toward Ethshar.”

“What about the priests?” someone called. “They’re still chanting!”

Alladia heard this, and hurried toward Hanner. “They’re still trying to summon Tarma,” she said. “Give them another few minutes.”

“I want to finish eating,” someone called.

“I’m too tired, I need to rest a little more.”

“It’s still too cold!”

“Let the sun get above the trees, so we can see.”

Hanner grimaced. “Fine!” he shouted. “Fine! Half an hour, and then we go.”

That seemed to meet with general acceptance, and Hanner settled to the ground, cross-legged, to wait.

As he sat, he wondered what had become of Mavi. Was she still living in Warlock House, the mansion that had once belonged to Hanner’s uncle Faran? Probably not; after all, she wasn’t a warlock. He had owned the house, and she was his heir, but the Council of Warlocks might not recognize that.

Perhaps the Council had acknowledged her ownership and paid her rent. Hanner hoped so. He had not left her wealthy; so much of his money had gone toward that ridiculous tapestry and its useless refuge that Mavi would have been far from rich after his departure. He hoped she had been all right. He had a sudden, horrible image of her and their children camping in the Hundred-Foot Field and shuddered.

But surely his sisters would have looked after her, if only for the sake of their nieces and nephew. Mavi might be living in the overlord’s palace, as a guest of Lady Alris, Hanner’s youngest sister. Mavi and the children should be all right.

But he wanted to get back to them and be sure. Sitting on the trampled grass was not getting him any closer to seeing them.

Finally, he looked at the sun, well above the horizon, and decided he had waited long enough. He got to his feet and was just about to call for attention when someone screamed behind him.

He turned, startled.

Then there were more screams, and fingers pointing at the western sky. Hanner heard the word that was being screamed, and his blood went cold even before he saw what those fingers were pointing at.

It was unmistakable, and he added his own bellow to the screams.

“Dragon!” he cried. “It’s a dragon!”