The Unwelcome Warlock. Lawrence Watt-Evans

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ