dismiss the idea out of hand.
“A war?” The warlock’s tone was calm and considering.
Sterren nodded, encouraged that the warlock had not rejected the idea out of hand. He glanced at the wizard.
She had hardly listened; her attention was on the door to the kitchen. It was an interesting door, with the skull of a small dragon mounted so as to form the top of the frame and the dragon’s lower jaw serving as a door- handle, but Sterren suspected the poor young woman was far more interested in what would be coming through that door than in the decor that gave the tavern its name.
The wizard caught his eye and turned back to him. “I don’t care what the job is,” she said, sniffing and brushing a stray ringlet back over her shoulder, “if it won’t get me killed outright and you pay in gold. I’ll take it.” She hesitated, then wiped her nose and asked, “It won’t get me killed outright, will it?”
“I certainly hope not,” Sterren said. “If we win, it won’t, but if we lose, you’ll probably have to flee for your lives.” He shrugged. “Fleeing shouldn’t be difficult; it’s wide-open country, and the kingdoms are so small it should be easy to get safely across a border before they can catch you.”
The warlock nodded. “You say Semma is far to the south?”
Sterren nodded again. “About as far to the southeast as you can get, really; from the castle’s highest tower you can see the edge of the World, on a clear day. I’ve seen it myself.” He stared at the warlock, a suspicion growing in the back of his mind.
He had not really had time to consider his two prospective employees, but now he did.
Warlockry was virtually unknown in Semma. He had no way of knowing for certain whether it would work there at all and he was quite sure it would be far less effective than it was in Ethshar. A warlock, therefore, would not be his preferred sort of magician.
On the other hand, this particular warlock seemed very interested in going south.
Sterren could guess what that meant. This particular warlock probably wanted to get as far away from Aldagmor and the Power’s Source as he could. He might have already had the first warning nightmares that meant he had pushed his warlockry to dangerous levels.
Warlockry, as Sterren knew from his aborted apprenticeship, drew its power from a mysterious Source located somewhere in the Aldagmor region, a mountainous area far to the north of Ethshar, on the edge of the Baronies of Sardiron. A warlock’s power varied as the inverse square of the distance from this thing. A warlock’s power also increased with use; every spell a warlock cast made the next one a shade easier. Most magic worked that way, of course; most skills of any kind did. The effect was rather extreme with warlockry, however, because warlockry, unlike all other magic, also directly counteracted fatigue; magic not only didn’t tire a warlock, it revivified him, without limit.
Except that there was a limit. When a warlock’s power reached a certain level, he began to have nightmares. From then on, every further use of warlockry caused more and worse nightmares, which could make life virtually unbearable.
Eventually an afflicted warlock wouldn’t even need to be asleep to suffer these hideous visions and, in the end, every warlock ever known to have reached this point had died or vanished. Those who did not commit suicide were often seen wandering north, toward Aldagmor, usually flying, but then were never seen again.
This was known as the Calling, because that was what the nightmares seemed to be: a horrible, supernatural summons of some kind that would draw a warlock either to Aldagmor or death, or both.
What most warlocks did was, when the first nightmare hit, to move south or west, further from Aldagmor, and give up warlockry for good. The smarter ones would have been charging exorbitant fees in anticipation of this and could afford to retire in comfort.
Sterren guessed that this warlock had pushed his luck, and had already had considerably more than one nightmare, so that he was now desperate to get as far from Aldagmor as possible, as quickly as possible.
Whatever his reasons, the warlock might be either a great stroke of luck or utterly worthless, depending on just what power did remain to him in Semma, so very far from Aldagmor.
Bringing him along would be a gamble, but after all, Sterren had always been a gambler.
If any warlock could be of help in Semma, one already touched by nightmare, on the verge of the Calling, would surely be most likely. The Calling only came when warlocks reached the height of their power. In fact, one theory was that the Calling was something the gods used to remove warlocks who were becoming too powerful, who might damage the gods’ plan for the World.
A lesser warlock would not be worth bothering with, but a really powerful one might be. He would surely be greatly weakened, but he would also be something that nobody in Ophkar or Ksinallion would ever have seen before.
“Nightmares?” Sterren asked quietly.
For the first time since Sterren had first seen him in the market, the warlock’s calm expression changed; he let a flicker of surprise at Sterren’s knowledge show. Then, slowly, he nodded.
Sterren smiled slightly. He knew that the Calling gave the warlock reasons for coming south far more important than a pound of gold.
That meant he would probably work cheap, far cheaper than his level of power might otherwise justify.
“You’ll be coming, then?” Sterren asked.
The warlock nodded again.
Sterren turned to the wizard. “And you?”
“What’s the pay, exactly? Are meals included?” Her voice shook a little. She looked at Sterren as she wiped her nose on her sleeve again.
The serving maid chose that moment to return with a tray holding six plates of stewed vegetables, tainted with only the smallest trace of mutton. A bottle of red wine and half a dozen stacked mugs were included, as well.
Sterren and the two Semman soldiers distributed the plates, while the warlock sent the cups floating through the air to the appropriate places. At a gesture, the cork sprang from the bottle’s neck, and the bottle then settled itself in front of Lady Kalira.
Startled, she picked it up and only after a moment’s hesitation did she begin pouring.
Sterren threw the warlock a puzzled glance. If he had reached the threshold of nightmare, didn’t he realize that every additional use of warlockry would increase his danger? At least, that was what Sterren’s master, Bergan the Warlock, had said.
The warlock saw the look and smiled slightly. “In honor of our imminent departure for more southerly climes,” he said, raising his cup as if in a toast.
The others probably thought it was just a toast, but Sterren knew what the warlock meant. After keeping his magic in check, for hours, days, sixnights, even months, perhaps, he was allowing himself a little freedom, secure in the knowledge that he would soon be sailing away from whatever waited in the mountains and valleys of Aldagmor.
Sterren put that out of his mind and turned to the wizard. “The pay,” he explained, “will include meals, and a hammock aboard ship, and a room in Semma Castle, possibly shared with others, but a bed of your own, at any rate. You’ll need to learn some Semmat, I’m afraid; virtually nobody there speaks a word of Ethsharitic. If we win our war, then the magicians involved, as a group, will be paid ten rounds of gold, and, a dozen choice gems, I can show them to you later, if you like, but not in a tavern like this. How this payment is to be divided up is yet to be determined; either the magicians can decide amongst themselves, or King Phenvel can divide it up as he deems appropriate. Would that suit you?”
She nodded, sniffling.
“If you don’t mind my asking, just what magic do you know?” Sterren inquired. Obviously, she knew no spells to keep a cold away.
“Wizardry, of course,” she said.
That was no surprise, but Sterren knew well that wizards came in a wide range of skills and power. “Much wizardry?” he asked.
“Well...” She hesitated, then admitted what her soiled clothes and empty belly had already made obvious. “No, not really. A few spells.”
