The Unwelcome Warlock. Lawrence Watt-Evans

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СКАЧАТЬ 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?

      Chapter Seven

      Hanner stared at the approaching dragon, trying to think what he should do. He had never seen a full-grown, flying dragon before, only the hatchlings kept as pets by the more ostentatious among Ethshar’s ruling elite, and the half-grown juveniles displayed in the Arena. Those dragons were always killed before they reached adulthood. The only adult dragons he had ever heard of were out in the wilderness, far from all human habitation.

      But then, they were in eastern Aldagmor, which had been uninhabitable by humans for the past thirty-odd years — this was out in the wilderness. Why wouldn’t there be dragons here?

      This one was still coming, and Hanner began to realize that this wasn’t just any dragon, it was a huge dragon, easily a hundred feet long. Its wings and flanks were a rich emerald green, and its throat and belly were golden yellow, and it was so big that its wings seemed to fill half the sky.

      And as it drew closer, he could see that there was something on its back, at the base of its neck. Hanner blinked.

      Meanwhile, all around him people were screaming and running. Some were bright enough to scatter into the surrounding forests and hills, but most were simply fleeing directly away from the dragon, running more or less due east.

      Hanner was not going to do that. The dragon could overtake anyone it tried to, he was sure, so there was no point in running. If it intended to eat someone, it could pick whomever it wanted.

      But if it wasn’t just looking for a snack and planning to grab the first person it could, then perhaps it could be reasoned with. Hanner had always heard that some of the larger dragons could talk; maybe he could talk to this one. If all it wanted was a meal — well, it wasn’t a pleasant idea, but Hanner knew there were dead bodies in the pit, people who had been crushed or smothered before they could climb out. He would have greatly preferred to give all those poor people a proper funeral and burn the bodies, but feeding them to a dragon was certainly better than letting it eat living people.

      A dragon this size couldn’t be stupid, or it wouldn’t have lived long enough to get so large. It surely couldn’t make a habit of eating people, or it would have drawn the attention of dragon-hunters.

      At least, that was what Hanner tried to tell himself.

      And that thing at the base of its neck…Hanner realized that it was a person, a man seated in a sort of saddle. Hanner blinked again, and shouted, “Hai!” He waved his arms over his head.

      The dragon wheeled and turned upward, craning its long neck to look down at Hanner; it looked around, and found clear ground nearby — all the other former warlocks in that area who were capable of it had fled, leaving a space large enough for the beast to land without stepping on anyone. It settled gracefully to the ground, and the wind of its arrival forced Hanner back two or three steps. It folded its wings, then swung its immense head around to look at Hanner with slit-pupiled golden eyes the size of cartwheels.

      The man riding on its back leaned over to look at Hanner, as well, and Hanner looked back, seeing a handsome, black-haired young man dressed in fine leathers.

      But it was the dragon, and not the rider, who spoke.

      “Our compliments, sirrah, and are you, perchance, in a position to speak for all, and to explain your presence here?”

      Its voice was deep and rumbling, as if a thunderstorm had spoken, and on top of that it spoke Ethsharitic with a curious accent, a little like one Hanner had occasionally heard from very old people when he was a boy in the overlord’s palace. It took a moment for Hanner to make sense of its words.

      His comprehension was not aided by the constant awareness that he was standing a few feet away from a mouth that could swallow him in a single gulp. Hanner’s instinctive terror was tempered by the realization that the creature seemed more interested in talking to him than in eating him, but he was still terrified.

      It did not help that he realized he could smell the dragon; he was that close to the great beast. Its odor was not quite like anything he had ever smelled before, but reminded him of dust, blood, and hot metal.

      “As much as anyone is, yes,” he said at last.

      “Pray you, then, speak, and expound to us how you come to be standing untroubled not a hundred yards from the Warlock Stone — if indeed, the Stone remains.”

      The stone the dragon spoke of could only be the source of the Calling. “It doesn’t,” Hanner said. “It’s gone, back where it came from.”

      “And was that then the great disturbance that we saw from afar a few hours gone, in the depths of night?”

      Hanner had reached his limit in making sense of the creature’s questions. “I…what?”

      “May I, Aldagon?” the man in the saddle called.

      “And you would,” the dragon replied, turning to look at its passenger.

      The black-haired young man smiled, and slid from his place on the monster’s back. He dropped a few yards to the ground, but managed to stay on his feet, and came walking up to Hanner, hand extended.

      They shook, and the young man in leather said, “I’m Dumery of the Dragon, and this is Aldagon, She Who Is Great Among Dragons. Aldagmor is named for her.”

      This seemed to Hanner to be an extravagant and unlikely claim, but he was hardly in a position to argue about it, and after all, these were unlikely circumstances. “I’m Hanner,” he said. “Formerly Hanner the Warlock, formerly Chairman of the Council of Warlocks.”

      Dumery nodded thoughtfully, СКАЧАТЬ