The Unwelcome Warlock

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Kirris crouched in the closet, alone in the dark, trying to stop trembling. She was terrified. This was not what was supposed to happen.

Vond had been fooled by her remembered dream, but only for a moment. He had figured out the truth with frightening speed. That did not fit Kirris’ expectations; she had been given the impression that the emperor was a rather stupid man. He did not seem stupid now.

At least he had not guessed all the details. He had accepted the idea that he had been the target of the Spell of Invaded Dreams. That meant he had not assumed the magician responsible for his nightmare was nearby, since wizardry could work at great distances, and he had not gone looking for the perpetrator. If he had realized the dream came from a witch, he could have easily found Kirris – found her, and killed her.

Her first reaction had been to think that she had to get out, and get away, but then she had caught herself. If she was seen fleeing, that would be highly suspicious. Vond had no reason to suspect her presence, and if she stayed here, in the mansion, she could spy on him, and perhaps do some good.

Staying in the closet would be suspicious, too, of course. She had to slip out and find somewhere else – an empty bed, perhaps. Unfortunately, she could not get out as easily as she had gotten in; other people had been awakened by the racket when Vond awoke and smashed his way through the ceiling, and were standing outside the bedroom door, talking quietly. Getting past them unnoticed would be difficult; they would be alert, and her usual distraction spell would not be reliable.

Kirris listened as Vond talked to Hanner, and she read the emotions of the woman in Vond’s bed – Leth, he had called her. Kirris could not hear Leth’s thoughts through the closet wall, and through the haze of magical energy Vond was creating by levitating himself, but she could sense what the other woman was feeling. She was oddly calm. Part of that was sleepiness and the happy relaxation that followed hours of passion, but even so, she seemed surprisingly unsurprised. Maybe she had had previous experience with powerful warlocks.

Leth did not really matter, though, so far as Kirris was concerned; it was Vond who was the problem. He was talking to Hanner, and Hanner was answering his questions, and then Hanner was going off on some errand, and Vond had descended back into his bedchamber. He told Leth to get dressed and go, and Kirris could sense Leth debating, as she retrieved her tunic and skirt, whether or not to demand her money now. Vond was paying her no attention at all, but reassembling the ceiling he had smashed.

The ease with which he restored broken beams, torn fabric, and shattered plaster to its former undamaged state was frightening; Kirris did not remember any of the other warlocks she had known having that much power and control.

She could not stay in the closet; Vond might notice her as he checked for damage to repair. She quickly opened the closet and headed for the bedroom door. She had belatedly realized that the former warlocks would find nothing suspicious about her presence; to them, she would be one more house-guest curious about all the racket. She tried to project her customary don’t-notice-me magic, but she knew her effort was shaky.

She stepped out into the lamp-lit corridor just as Leth emerged from Vond’s chamber. Kirris met the other woman’s gaze, and realized she had been so intent on not being seen by Vond or noticed by the other guests that she had done nothing at all to avoid Leth’s attention.

There were a dozen other people standing in the hall or on the stairs, drawn by the shaking and noise, and several of them glanced at Kirris – her witchcraft was not effective in her agitated state. Others stared at Leth, in her red skirt and low-cut tunic, as she ambled toward the grand staircase.

Then Hanner came trotting down the stairs at the other end of the passage, a candle in his hand, and it didn’t matter whether Kirris had been noticed or not, as the former chairman’s presence distracted everyone. Kirris was able to reshape her spell, reinforcing it so that no one would see her unless they actively looked. As she did, several voices called out.

“Hanner!”

“Chairman!”

“My lord!”

“I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now,” Hanner said, as he hurried past and headed for the grand staircase down to the ground floor. He called back over his shoulder, “Don’t bother the emperor! He was disturbed, and didn’t appreciate it!”

Leth turned at the sound of Hanner’s voice and stepped to one side, letting him pass; he paused as he did, and murmured something to her that Kirris did not catch.

She grimaced. She had still had her attention and her magic focused elsewhere. Still, she doubted whatever Hanner had said to the streetwalker was important. Kirris watched Hanner go, and Leth follow him down the steps at a far more leisurely pace. The witch tried to decide what she should do next. The whole false-Calling scheme was obviously a complete failure. Vond had seen through it almost immediately. He was not going to be frightened out of using his magic as easily as Ithinia and the others had hoped. He was still dangerous, and still drawing power from those towers in Lumeth that Ithinia said were essential to the World’s existence.

Kirris wondered whether it might have been possible to talk Vond out of using his magic by simply telling him how much was at risk, how much harm he would do if he damaged the towers. If it ever had been – and she had doubts about that – it probably was not possible any more, now that he had been antagonized by that dream.

Killing him would be the simplest solution. Ithinia could turn him to stone, or maybe Demerchan would remove him in some mysterious fashion. But Ithinia had hoped to avoid that, as she did not want to anger Lord Azrad, or risk open warfare with Vond, with the chance of massive damage to his surroundings.

And there was the chance that killing him might cause some sort of backlash, and damage the towers. Since the nature of his link to them was completely unknown, so were its effects. It seemed very unlikely that killing him would do any real harm to his power source, but they couldn’t be completely sure.

In any case, Kirris wasn’t going to kill him. She doubted she could. Witchcraft was too similar to warlockry to bypass his defenses undetected, and his magic was a hundred times more powerful than hers. He could easily block any direct attack she might make.

She couldn’t kill him. She couldn’t remove his ability to work magic. She couldn’t fool him into giving it up.

There was that magical tapestry upstairs, leading into a world where warlockry could not reach; if she could trick him into touching the tapestry, and somehow block the return, that would render the Great Vond completely harmless – but how could she do that? Vond wasn’t that stupid. If he had seen through the dream so quickly, he would know better than to go near the tapestry.

Maybe Ithinia or Teneria could think of a way to get Vond into that tapestry, but Kirris couldn’t. Instead, she would stay in Warlock House for the night, since leaving at this hour would draw attention, and she would do nothing drastic. She would watch and see what Vond was up to, but in the morning, she thought, her best course of action would be to go back to Ithinia and report what had happened, and leave it up to the Guild, or the cult of Demerchan, or someone else, to decide what must be done. She had given the dream idea a good try, and it had failed; she had done her part and could now leave with her head held high and let others handle the problem.

She paused to take one final look at what Vond was doing behind the carved door of his bedchamber, but before she could bring her magic to bear that door opened again, and the emperor himself emerged, floating several inches off the ground and glowing eerily orange. Kirris wondered how a black robe could glow orange, but somehow it did.

The warlock paused, hovering at the top of the stair, and looked over the dozen or so people watching him. “My comrades,” he said. “You were all Called, I take it? You shared that experience with me?”

Several of the observers exchanged uneasy glances. About half of them made low noises of agreement. Kirris said nothing, and kept her gaze fixed firmly on Vond.

“A wizard has just tried to frighten me with a lying dream,” Vond announced, his voice unnaturally loud. “I believe the Wizards’ Guild is trying to intimidate me, and I don’t intend to allow it. I am about to go express my displeasure to their Guildmaster, Ithinia of the Isle, and to Lord Azrad, the overlord of this city. If you don’t want to be involved, this would be a good time to leave and never come back – leave not just this house, but the city. If you want to stand with me, and support me in my defiance of the Guild, then stay – I may be able to use your help. And if you serve me well, I do know how to turn you back into warlocks – not using your old source, that’s gone, but using the same source I have. Show me you’re loyal, show me I can trust you, and you can join me as new warlocks, unfettered by any Calling. If not – go now, while you can.”

“But the wizards helped us -” a woman standing by the stair rail began.

She was interrupted by a sudden movement as she was snatched upward, flung upward until her back pressed against the ceiling.

“They didn’t help me,” Vond roared. “If you think they care about you, then go to them. They just tried to scare me out of using my magic! They’re afraid of me, and I’m going to show them they have good reason to be.”

Kirris heard a door slam open somewhere downstairs, and Vond rose from the landing until he was face to face with his terrified captive.

“Are you with me?” he demanded. “Or are you with them? This is the confrontation between wizards and warlocks we’ve all been expecting ever since the Night of Madness, and it’s time for you to choose sides. Choose now, woman!”

“I don’t…I don’t want any trouble!” the woman said, trembling.

“Then you’re in the wrong place!” Vond bellowed, and his prisoner suddenly plummeted down the stairwell, swooping out of Kirris’ line of sight – not falling, though, but flying, and Kirris did not hear a thump or crash, only a scream that faded with distance.

Then the door she had heard open a moment before slammed shut, cutting off the woman’s cry of fear.

When the screaming stopped, Vond turned his attention to the others. “Choose now,” he said. “Anyone who is still in this house when I get back is mine. Loyalty will be rewarded, and disobedience – well, I don’t have time to be bothered with pleas and forgiveness and second chances, or enforcing a lot of different rules and handing out different punishments. It’s going to be absolutely simple: Disobey me, and you’ll die.”

“You can really make us warlocks again?” a man asked.

“Yes,” Vond said. “Yes, I can. I’ve done it once.”

Kirris watched as some of the others looked about nervously. They obviously wanted proof that Vond could do what he claimed, but no one dared ask for it. She wondered whether he really had already done it once, and if so, to whom? Where was this other new warlock? She was sure several other people were thinking exactly the same questions, but no one had the nerve to speak them aloud.

And if it was true, if he really could create more warlocks, would he?

If he did, if there were a hundred warlocks drawing on the power of whatever it was in Lumeth that gave him his magic, what would that do to the towers that Ithinia had been worried about? Quite aside from that, how much damage would they do? If two of them fought, with no Calling to limit them, they could lay waste to an entire city. If the stories about Vond were true, if he really had once bent the edge of the World, a hundred such warlocks could destroy everything.

Kirris could not allow that. She had been thinking her part in this was done, but now she knew she had more to do. She could not defeat Vond, but perhaps she could prevent the creation of more warlocks.

“You think about it,” Vond said. “You think about it, and decide – are you with me, or not? You have until I get back.” Then he dropped away from the ceiling, and like his victim of a moment before, swooped down the stairs and out of sight.

For a moment there was only stunned silence, but then the people in the corridor began to mutter to one another. Several of them cast worried glances down the stairs.

“I don’t trust him,” Kirris said, reversing her spell so that instead of going unnoticed, she would be the center of attention. “You heard how power-mad he is; do you really think he’d ever let any of us share in that? He’s never going to make any of us warlocks again. I don’t think he even can. He’ll just lead us on with promises, use us as slaves, and probably get us all killed. I mean, yes, he’s powerful, but he wants to fight the entire Wizards’ Guild! That’s insane! I say we should all get out of here while we still can.”

“She’s right,” a young man said.

“But I want my magic back!” someone protested.

“He’s not going to give it to you!” Kirris insisted, using her magic to make her words more persuasive. “If he really did make someone else into this new kind of warlock, where is he? Why not show us? It’s all lies. He’s trying to trick us; he can’t do it.”

Several voices spoke at once. “I don’t know…”

“What if he…”

“Maybe we should…”

But then they all fell silent, and every eye turned to stare at the stairs as Vond reappeared, rising up from below, his robe flapping in a nonexistent wind.

“Oh, I can do it,” he said, his gaze fixed on Kirris. “My former apprentice lived in Semma, in the Small Kingdoms; I transformed him fifteen years ago. He wasn’t Called.”

“Why should we believe you?” Kirris demanded, her heart pounding as she tried to hide her fear. “Where is this apprentice now?”

“I don’t know where he is,” Vond said. “I was Called, just like the rest of you, remember? I don’t know what happened to everyone I knew before.”

“But why haven’t we heard of him? A powerful warlock in the Small Kingdoms – wouldn’t we have heard?”

“Do you hear about every strong warlock? I don’t think so,” Vond replied.

“But in the Small Kingdoms? Warlocks are scarce there. The Wizards’ Guild doesn’t even allow warlocks in some of them!”

Vond cocked his head. “How did you know that?” he asked. “When were you Called? If it was after the ban, why are you here? Didn’t you have anywhere else to go?”

Kirris felt sweat break out on her forehead. “I…I was talking to someone…”

“No,” Vond said. “You’re lying. Your heart’s pounding, and you’re sweating.”

“I’m not lying. I’m terrified!” Kirris said. “Of you!”

“I suppose you… Wait.”

Kirris felt her skin crawl, though she did not know why. “Wait for what?”

“You aren’t a warlock,” Vond said accusingly. “You never were. You don’t have the thing in your head.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about -”

“You’re a witch!” Vond said. “What’s a witch doing here?”

“I… Some witches were Called on the Night of Madness, you know that,” she said desperately.

“You were never a warlock,” Vond said. “Did you think we can’t tell? How could we ever make apprentices if we couldn’t tell the difference? You weren’t a warlock!”

“All right, I wasn’t,” Kirris admitted, “but I heard… I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and I heard about this house, and -”

Vond shook his head, and Kirris felt her spells stripped away, wiped from her by Vond’s own magic, like a cloth wiping away dust. “You’re a witch, a strong witch, and you’ve been using a lot of magic, I can feel it. I can’t tell what you did with it, but I can see that you’ve been using energy, and that your muscles haven’t been working hard, so you’ve been working magic. You’ve been spying on us, haven’t you?”

“I wasn’t… I don’t…” Kirris was suddenly shoved back against the wall, pressed flat against the wallpaper, arms spread, palms out, head up.

“Or maybe…maybe you did more than watch,” Vond said. “Maybe you sent that dream. Maybe it wasn’t the wizards at all.”

Kirris tried to turn her head, to see what the others in the corridor were doing, but she could not move. Her eyes were fixed on Vond’s face, whether she wanted them to be or not. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“Why did you do it?” Vond asked. “Is the Sisterhood trying to make me stop using magic? Did someone hire you?”

“I didn’t,” Kirris said.

“You wouldn’t have done it by yourself,” Vond said. “I don’t know you; you’d have no reason to do that to me. You must be here representing somebody.”

“I didn’t mean any harm,” Kirris said.

The invisible force holding her against the wall suddenly pressed harder; she felt plaster crack under her shoulder blades, and something broke in her left hand, sending shooting pain up her arm. “Any harm?” Vond bellowed. “You sent me a nightmare! You sent me the Call!”

“I didn’t want to,” Kirris said. She was beginning to have trouble breathing. “I tried to help.”

“Help who? Not me, certainly! Who were you helping? Who sent you?”

“No one!”

“You know you’re going to die if you don’t tell me the truth, don’t you?” Vond told her. “Was it the Sisterhood? I never thought they had any problem with warlocks, but you’re a witch, so perhaps I just missed it.”

“It… Not the Sisterhood,” Kirris said, struggling for breath.

“Then why a witch? Why did they send you, whoever they are?”

“I knew what the Calling felt like,” Kirris admitted. “I shared minds with a Called warlock, long ago.”

Vond’s eyes widened. “Did you? No wonder it felt so real! But who sent you? The overlord? Or…” His eyes widened further as a thought struck him. “Was it Sterren?”

“Who?”

Vond’s eyes narrowed again. “Not Sterren,” he said. “You aren’t that good a liar, not with your magic blocked. It wasn’t Sterren, then. Lord Azrad?”

“No.” Vond’s eyes seemed to be drilling into her head. Kirris knew that warlocks could not hear thoughts the way witches could, but they could see things, sense things inside the body, that let them tell truth from falsehood with considerable accuracy.

“Not the overlord. Who, then? A wizard would just use one of his own spells…”

Kirris tried not to react, not to give the warlock the slightest hint, but she knew she had failed. She saw his eyes widen again.

“A wizard?” he said. “Which one? Ithinia of the Isle?”

Kirris did not answer in words, but she did not need to. Vond could read the truth in her response to the name.

She felt her heart pounding, felt the sheen of sweat on her brow, felt the pain of her broken hand, the pressure on her back where she was shoved against and into the wall.

She felt her heart stop, and a sudden jolt of pain flash through her chest.

And then she felt nothing at all, ever again.