The Unwelcome Warlock

Chapter Six

Lord Sterren, Regent of the Vondish Empire, was taking a morning stroll on the battlements of Semma Castle, looking out toward the Imperial Palace, when a movement in the northern sky, far beyond the palace, caught his eye. He raised a hand to shade his eyes and peered into the distance.

There were several flying objects out there, dark shapes against the blue sky – more than several; scores, maybe hundreds. They were too far away to make out details, and the lack of a background made it impossible to judge their precise size or distance, but they did not move like birds and were not proportioned like birds.

There were too many to be dragons – or rather, if they were dragons, the whole World had gone mad. Which was not impossible, but it seemed unlikely, and they didn’t look like dragons.

They looked like people. In fact, they were coming rapidly nearer and looking more and more like people with every second.

Flying people meant magicians, and not just any sort of magician – herbalists and ritual dancers couldn’t fly, so far as Sterren had ever heard. Demonologists only flew when carried by demons, and besides, Sterren doubted there were that many demonologists in all the Small Kingdoms. There were a few other unlikely possibilities, but the odds were good that these were either wizards or warlocks. Or both.

Either one would be bad news. Both would be very bad news.

Warlocks were banned from the Vondish Empire. A delegation from the Wizards’ Guild had made that very clear twelve years ago. If these flying people were warlocks, their presence in the Empire amounted to a declaration of war between themselves and the Guild. Sterren really, really didn’t want to be anywhere near a war between a hundred warlocks and the Wizards’ Guild. He had seen a war fought with magic when he first came to Semma – in fact, he had been the one who brought the magicians into it. That had been a very small-scale affair, fought by some of the least-powerful magicians available, and it had still been frightening. He had then seen Vond build the empire, which had been awe-inspiring. Both of those conflicts had only had magic on one side, and they had been quite ugly enough. A war of warlocks against wizards would be very bad.

If these were not warlocks, but wizards, then the question was, why would they be coming here, to the southern edge of the World? Why would they be flying, and by themselves, rather than on carpets or the other aerial vehicles wizards generally favored? Why would there be so many of them? When that Guildmaster, Ithinia of the Isle, had delivered the Guild’s ultimatum, half a dozen wizards with their feet on the ground had been more than enough to cow the entire empire.

But then a thought struck him; flying people meant magic, yes, but they didn’t all have to be magicians. Many of them might just be passengers, carried along by the magicians. That might not be so bad, then. Perhaps these people had offended a wizard somewhere and were being sent into exile here in Vond.

Somehow, Sterren doubted the situation was that benign, but it might be. His luck had often been excellent. Really, with few exceptions, he had been fortunate ever since he tricked Vond himself into making himself susceptible to the Calling. Yes, the Imperial Council had insisted on naming him regent and had refused to let him leave and go back home to Ethshar, but he had long ago gotten used to his position. He was happily married, with five healthy children; the empire was doing well and had managed to avoid getting into any border wars for more than a decade.

He very much feared, though, that his good fortune was coming to an end. He turned to the stairs and shouted down to his guard, “Send word to convene the Council, and put the entire garrison on alert!” He looked back over his shoulder at that cloud of people and added, “And see what magicians are in the castle – I want to see whoever’s available in the throne room immediately!”

Then he trotted down the stairs, bound for the Imperial Palace, still trying to guess who these aerial travelers might be.

If it had been just one man, there would have been an obvious, if nightmarish, possibility. There was a reason Sterren’s title was regent, rather than emperor. There was a reason he didn’t live in the Imperial Palace. Officially, the Vondish Empire still belonged to the Great Vond, the warlock who had been Called to Aldagmor almost fifteen years ago; Sterren and the Council were just looking after it until he returned. That was generally considered a polite fiction – but maybe it wasn’t. No warlock had ever come back from Aldagmor, but Vond had done a good many things no one else had ever done. He had found a way to draw warlock-like magic from a source in Lumeth, as well as the one in Aldagmor, and had used the magic to build his empire. There had never been another warlock like him.

If one warlock had appeared in the sky, Sterren would have thought it might be Vond.

He shuddered at the very idea. Vond had never really intended to be cruel or destructive – indeed, he had for the most part been a beneficent tyrant and had significantly improved the lives of the common people of the eighteen kingdoms he conquered – but he had a temper. A bad temper. Sterren still remembered the sight of poor Ildirin’s mangled corpse – Ildirin, the butcher who Vond had brought from Ksinallion to be one of his palace servants, had spilled wine on his master, and the warlock had smashed the unfortunate man against a stone wall, then crushed his skull, all without touching him.

And worst of all, Vond had then carried on the discussion as if nothing untoward had happened.

Vond also had grandiose ambitions. He had built the Imperial Palace by magically reshaping the bedrock, deliberately making it larger and grander than Semma Castle, but that was the least of it; he had lit the night sky for miles around, he had turned up a chunk of the earth itself to make a barrier at the edge of the World, he had done any number of spectacular feats, merely to show that he could.

Only when he realized that he was still susceptible to the Calling, despite drawing his power from a different source, had he stopped looking for bigger and bigger ways to display his magnificence. Instead, he had huddled in his palace, trying to use no magic at all, until one night he had flown off to the north, never to be seen again.

Vond had known Sterren betrayed him, but had done nothing about it, because Sterren was the closest thing to a friend he had, and the only other person in the empire’s capital of Semma who understood anything about warlockry. He had needed Sterren. But if he came back…

But this wasn’t just one warlock; there were dozens of people flying.

The possibility that they were all warlocks who had somehow learned to use the Lumeth source occurred to Sterren, and he almost fell down the stairs at the mere thought. One such warlock had reshaped the Small Kingdoms; what might scores of them do?

But how could anyone else have tapped into the Lumeth source? No, that didn’t seem very likely. The Wizards’ Guild wouldn’t allow it.

He paused on the third floor of the castle to catch his breath, call a few more orders, and take a look out a north-facing window.

The flying people had arrived more quickly than he had expected; they were already settling to the ground in Palace Square, while the capital’s inhabitants made way and stared in astonishment.

One of them, though, was not descending with the others; he was hanging in the air above the great doors of the Imperial Palace. He was tall, thin, and pale, and wore a black robe embroidered with gold. Sterren felt his throat tighten and his stomach knot. It had been fifteen years, but he remembered a robe like that.

That had been what Vond wore.

Sterren reached out and opened the casement just as the apparition began to speak, and even though he was at least half a mile away, Sterren could hear every word – the warlock was using magic to amplify his voice.

“People of Semma!” the flying man said. “I, the Great Vond, have returned! I have come back from a far realm to resume rule over my empire! Let the word be spread from Quonshar to Ksinallion that I am here!”

“Oh, this is bad,” Sterren said. Vond was back, and judging by his words, as egotistical as ever. But how was this possible? He had been Called, and no warlock ever returned from the Calling.

Or at least, none had until now.

Sterren turned away from the window and found two of his personal guards standing in the passage. “You, Bragen,” he said. “Go find Lar Samber’s son. Whether he likes it or not, he’s about to come out of retirement; I need to talk to him as soon as possible. Do whatever it takes to get him to come; he probably won’t want to. Threaten him if you need to.”

Bragen bowed. “Yes, my lord.” He turned and hurried away.

Sterren looked at the other guard. “Noril, go find Princess Shirrin and as many of my children as you can, and tell them to get out of the castle and away from Semma as quickly as possible. Go with them. Head for Akalla. If they can get to Ethshar, so much the better. Travel anonymously – you understand?”

Noril hesitated. “I…I think so, my lord.”

“Don’t just think so! That’s Emperor Vond out there, and if he loses his temper and doesn’t like what we’ve done with the place since he left, this whole city may be a hole in the ground by tomorrow, and I don’t want my family here if that happens.”

Noril bowed hastily. “Yes, my lord.” Then he, too, turned and hurried away.

Sterren forgot about his dignity as regent and ran for the stairs; he had to get to Palace Square at once. It was certain that Vond would want to see him, and keeping the warlock waiting was never a good idea.

Fifteen minutes later he trotted out into the plaza to find Vond waiting for him, hanging a foot or so off the ground. A mob of strangers and townspeople lined the sides of the square, but had left a wide berth around the warlock.

Most of the strangers, Sterren saw, wore black clothes – that probably meant they were more warlocks.

That was very, very bad.

Sterren was unsure just how best to greet the emperor, and decided not to go to either extreme; he stopped perhaps eight feet away and bowed, but did not kneel or otherwise abase himself. “Your Majesty,” he said.

Vond stared at him for a long moment, then said, “Sterren? Is that you?”

Sterren straightened up and looked Vond in the eye. “Of course it’s me,” he said.

“You’ve changed.”

“It’s been fifteen years – and I notice, your Majesty, that you haven’t changed. Frankly, that comes as something of a surprise.”

Vond smiled crookedly. “You didn’t expect me to come back at all, Sterren – you know it, and I know it. You don’t need to pretend.”

“I wasn’t pretending, your Majesty. You’re quite right, I didn’t expect you to come back. How did you manage it? Who are these people you brought with you?” He gestured at the surrounding strangers.

“They’re warlocks,” Vond said. “Or at least, they used to be.” He smiled unpleasantly.

“Used to be?” Sterren asked. “I take it there’s been some drastic change in…well, in something?”

“Oh, yes, there certainly has.” The smile broadened to a grin. “The Calling has ended, Sterren. Ended.”

That raised a great many questions, but Sterren settled on one to start with. “Ended? Permanently?”

“Oh, I think so, yes. The thing that was doing the calling, that was the source of warlockry, that fell out of the sky on the Night of Madness? That thing? It’s gone. It went home.”

Sterren considered that for half a second, then asked, “You don’t expect it to return for a visit, then?”

“No, I really don’t.”

“It hadn’t acquired a liking for Aldagmor?”

“Not at all.”

Sterren stepped closer and lowered his voice to a whisper. “So there isn’t anything magical in Aldagmor anymore? The only warlocks who can still work magic are the ones who use the source in Lumeth, instead?”

Vond nodded.

“Did you teach these people to use it?” Sterren gestured at the observers.

“No,” Vond said. “Not yet. I might, in time.”

“Or they might hear the buzz for themselves, the way you did.”

Vond’s smile vanished, and he looked around, suddenly uncertain. He clearly hadn’t thought of that possibility.

“But what you actually mean,” Sterren said hastily, to distract the emperor before he could do anything regrettable, “is that you are now the only warlock in the World.”

The smile reappeared. “Exactly! I am almost as powerful as I was before, and now I have no need to worry about the Calling. There’s nothing to stop me from expanding my empire further. I could unite all the Small Kingdoms!”

That was more or less what Sterren had feared, but something else Vond had said caught his attention. “Almost as powerful?”

“Almost, yes. I was drawing on both sources before, even when I didn’t know it, and now there is only one. In Aldagmor I found out I wasn’t as strong as before – these people are all I could carry, where I used to be able to move the World itself. My power increased as I flew south, though. I expect I will soon be stronger than ever.”

“It was most likely because of the distance, your Majesty; Aldagmor is a long way from Lumeth.”

“Do you think that’s it?” Vond glanced around again. “You’re probably right. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“You said these were all you could carry? Then there were more who survived the Calling?”

“What? Oh, yes, of course. Thousands of them; probably every warlock who was ever Called. We were all trapped in the thing’s protective spells – that’s why I haven’t aged. Has it really been fifteen years?”

“Yes, your Majesty, it has.”

“I see there are new buildings everywhere, and my palace is showing some wear.” He stared critically at the huge double doors; Sterren knew their finish was noticeably more weathered than it had been when Vond left. Giving them a fresh coat of varnish had never made it into the imperial budget.

That wasn’t important now, though. Sterren asked, “Your Majesty, what happened to the others?”

“What? The other Called warlocks? Oh, they’re probably still in Aldagmor.” He waved dismissively. “They aren’t my problem.”

“May I ask, then, why you brought these people?”

Vond turned back to face Sterren. “I told them they were my honor guard, and I would give them important positions in the empire,” he said, “but the truth is, I wanted some company – people who speak good Ethsharitic, and who can understand what it’s like being a warlock. Being an emperor was sort of lonely sometimes.” His expression turned thoughtful. “I suppose my harem is gone?”

“Long ago, your Majesty.”

“Well, I have plenty of time to find a new one. For now, though – well, I see you’re still here, and my palace is still here. What about the empire?”

“Still intact, your Majesty. Your overthrow of the old nobility was thorough enough that no one saw any point in restoring them. The Imperial Council has been administering the empire in your name ever since you left.”

“The Council?” Vond glanced around, as if looking for the other councillors, but found none. “What about you? Are you still chancellor?”

Sterren had been dreading this question. He was unsure just how Vond would react to the situation, but he was very, very glad that he had refused the title of emperor. “The Council named me regent, your Majesty, but I let the Council handle as much of the government as possible.”

“Regent?” Vond considered that. “That sounds sensible. So you were ruling in my place?”

Sterren suppressed a sigh of relief. “That’s right. Just until you came back.”

“And none of the eighteen kingdoms have gotten away?”

“None.”

“Have you conquered any more?”

“No, your Majesty. We thought this was plenty to handle.”

“Well, you’ll have more soon.” Vond gestured expansively. “I think Lumeth of the Towers will be next, since that’s where my power comes from.”

Sterren hesitated for an instant, debating the necessity of delivering bad news, then said, “Ah, your Majesty – there’s a problem with that.”

Vond frowned. “What sort of a problem?”

“We…we made a treaty with the Wizards’ Guild,” Sterren said.

“The Wizards’ Guild?” Vond looked puzzled. “What do they have to do with anything way out here?”

“It seems they have interests in Lumeth, your Majesty,” Sterren said. “Twelve years ago they banned all warlocks from Lumeth, and the empire, and Shassala, and Kalithon, and Gajamor, and Calimor, and Yaroia, and Zenda, and maybe a couple of others I’m forgetting. In fact, your return may be a violation of their ban all by itself.”

Vond’s frown deepened, and he glared at Sterren. “What, you agreed to this?”

“They guaranteed our borders, Vond,” Sterren explained. “We were on the verge of war with several of our neighbors. You weren’t here, and our other magicians are…well, not very impressive. The Guild was not in a mood to compromise on the ban on warlockry, and honestly, we didn’t really want any other warlocks here, and we didn’t think you would be back. They forced peace on the whole region. It seemed like a good deal.”

“Not to me.”

“You weren’t here!”

“I am now,” Vond growled. “I’m back, and I intend to stay, whether the Wizards’ Guild likes it or not. I will take Lumeth for my empire, and whatever else I like.” He raised a hand dramatically. “I may just take Ethshar itself! After all, I grew up there, and maybe I’d like to go home.”

As he finished his speech the warlock blinked, as if surprised by his own words, and Sterren began, “I don’t think -”

“You don’t have to think!” Vond waved a hand at Sterren, and the regent found himself flung roughly backward through the air. Fortunately for him, if not for the others involved, he hit the line of people surrounding the plaza, rather than anything particularly hard and unyielding.

“I am the only warlock in the World,” Vond announced, rising into the air and amplifying his voice again, “and the most powerful magician in history! I will do as I please, and the Wizards’ Guild can’t stop me!”

Sterren disentangled himself from the people he had struck, but was in no great hurry to get back on his feet, or to confront Vond further. He knew, though, that every part of that latest announcement was wrong. There was at least one other warlock who could draw on the Lumeth source, specifically Sterren himself. There had been several magicians over the centuries who could probably match Vond’s raw power, from Fendel the Great to the late, unlamented Empress Tabaea. And if it came down to open warfare, the Wizards’ Guild almost certainly could stop Vond.

The question was, how much of the World would be destroyed in the process?