When the different materials were sorted, Vond chose a house and studied it critically.
The thatch roof and most of the shutters were gone, but it was otherwise intact. Vond waved, and masses of thatch came flying down from the cloud and piled themselves into place.
“What about the shutters?” Sterren asked.
Vond glanced at him, then back at the house. “To Hell with the shutters,” he said, “I can’t do everything! How am I supposed to find the right ones out of all that?”
Sterren shrugged. “Just asking,” he said.
The repair work continued, as Sterren and the peasants watched.
As the day dragged on, most of the peasants settled to the ground, sitting or lying on the hard earth and chatting amongst themselves. A few leaned up against the castle walls. None dared venture out of the market.
The faces in the castle windows changed, as people tired of watching and were replaced by others. Still, Vond had a steady audience for his performance. Sterren thought he saw Princess Shirrin there almost the entire time.
Some time after noon Sterren spotted one of his soldiers and ordered that food and drink be brought out for the peasants and himself. He asked Vond if he cared for anything.
The warlock declined the offer and continued with his work.
Sterren realized he hadn’t seen Vond eat anything in days, and that there was surely no food in his unfinished palace. Was he living on magic alone?
Perhaps he was. Sterren thought better of inquiring and didn’t worry about it. He watched as his soldiers distributed bread, water, cheese, and dried fruit to the peasants, then ate his own meal, which was similar save that he drank wine.
The restoration of the village took a long time; in fact, Vond still had three houses unfinished when the sun sank out of sight and the sky began to darken.
Vond took care of that easily enough by summoning an orange glow in the sky that gave him enough light to work by.
When he had completed repairs to every house that had still stood, he lowered his arms and said, “There!”
Sterren nodded. “Very impressive,” he said.
Vond leaned over a merlon and called, “You can go home, now! If your house is gone, stay with a neighbor, and I’ll take care of you later!”
The crowd below stirred; some of the peasants, particularly the children, had gone to sleep and were awakened. Nobody left, however. Nobody made any move to leave the market. They just stared up at the warlock and the warlord.
“Why are you just sitting there?” Vond shouted.
Sterren reached out and put a hand on his arm. “They don’t understand Ethsharitic,” he said.
Vond whirled and stared at Sterren for a moment. Then he turned back to the market below, realization dawning.
“Oh,” he said. “Oh, damn!”
“You might want to learn Semmat,” Sterren suggested mildly.
“I’d rather they learned Ethsharitic,” Vond snapped. “And if I’m going to build an empire, I don’t want to have to learn half a dozen different tongues, damn it!”
Sterren shrugged. “Well, in time I’m sure you can make Ethsharitic the common language for your court, but right now, none of these people knows a word of it.”
“How the hell did all these stupid little languages happen, anyway? This was all part of Old Ethshar once, you know!”
“I have no idea,” Sterren said. “But they did. Maybe it was demons, or a trick by the ruling class to keep people where they belonged.”
Vond glared down at the village, lit a weird shade of orange by his unnatural illumination. “I suppose I’ll need interpreters,” he said.
“At least for now,” Sterren agreed.
For a moment, nobody spoke. Then Vond said, “You tell them, Sterren. Tell them they can go home. Tell them that if any of them want to work as my servants, they should come to my palace in the morning. I’m going home.” He rose into the air.
Sterren waved a farewell as the warlock began drifting away, then leaned over the ramparts and called, “The Great Vond has finished his work! Go home now! The Great Vond wants servants! If you want to be a servant to the Great Vond, go to his castle...” He remembered the word for “palace” from earlier conversation and rephrased that. “Go to his palace in the morning! If your house is not fixed, stay with a friend!”
The peasants stared up at him, and he heard someone say, “Who in the World is that?” He didn’t know if the man meant him or Vond; after all, since he had gone off to Ethshar before the invasion, he had not been seen much in his role as warlord.
Then, as his message sank in, the people began scattering to their rebuilt homes and shops.
The orange glow was fading rapidly as Vond moved off toward his fortress, but both moons were in the sky to allay the darkness. Sterren took one final look at the palace, its marble walls gleaming an eerie yellow against the black sky and plain in the strange mixed light, and then climbed back down from the wall and went inside.
So far, he could hardly accuse Vond of tyranny. Even so, he knew that the empire was doomed from the start.
CHAPTER 30
Nine days after the rout the Ksinallionese army marched back into Semma.
The exterior of Vond’s palace was almost complete; only the top of the huge northwestern tower remained open to the sky, although none of the roofs had yet been tiled.
The warlock scarcely needed to worry about leaky roofs, of course, since he could keep the rain away easily enough, as he in fact had so far. Besides, Sterren thought, a leaky roof wouldn’t do any harm, since there was nothing inside the palace as yet but bare stone walls and floors. He and Ederd had spent much of the previous day strolling through its empty halls and chambers, admiring the vast expanses of bare marble, as Vond explained what would eventually go where.
The warlock’s half-dozen servants had watched silently from their impromptu camp in what would in time be the kitchens. They had little to do, as yet, beyond seeing to their own most basic needs. Nothing needed cleaning yet, and Vond could not be bothered to eat real meals, but simply conjured up food from somewhere whenever he got hungry. He had no wardrobe to worry about; he still wore the same black warlock’s robe.
The stairways were not yet built, so the only way into the upper floors was by levitation. Some rooms had no windows as yet.
Even so, it was a very impressive job for a mere eight days’ work. All the more so, because Vond had spent a day or so cleaning and rebuilding the village around the old castle.
Looking out from his tower room in the old castle, and seeing the army on the horizon beyond the new palace, Sterren wondered what they thought of this great brooding edifice that had not been there when they left, just nine days before.
For that matter, he wondered what the people of Semma thought of it.
He sighed. He should, he thought, have realized that the lords of Ksinallion and Ophkar would not give up so easily as all that. A single battle was not a war.
Well, it wasn’t his problem, now that Vond had conquered Semma.
He watched as Vond appeared, rising out of the unfinished tower, his cloak spreading like wings on either side. He waited for the Ksinallionese army to be swept away.
It wasn’t. Instead, Vond dropped to the ground facing it, out of sight behind the palace.
