The Unwelcome Warlock. Lawrence Watt-Evans

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ