Sterren did not argue with Vond’s claim. “It’s too bad,” he remarked instead. “I was curious about what would happen if you got really close to the towers themselves. Aren’t they the source of your power?”
Vond nodded. “I was curious, too, but I won’t risk finding out. It’s too bad; I’d have preferred to have control over the towers.”
That had been sixnights before, early in the month of Longdays, and that unexpected defeat had been followed by more than half a dozen quick victories over the tiny port nations of the South Coast west of Akalla, victories that had extended Vond’s empire as far as it could safely go. Now, on the ninth of Harvest, Sterren stood on a balcony and looked out across the countryside.
The land was a rich green from horizon to horizon, punctuated only by roads and buildings and the bright colors of flowers; thanks to Vond’s control of the weather and reworking of the soil there were no barren spots, nowhere that the earth failed to yield generously.
Straight, smooth roads paved with stone stretched out from the plaza below the citadel, leading directly to each of the towns and castles of the empire.
The village that surrounded Semma Castle still stood, but was equalled in size and far outdone in splendor by the town growing up around Vond’s palace, a town built of white and gold marble, roofed in red tile. Small fountains babbled in each corner of the plaza and at several intersections, providing drinking water for anyone who wanted it, and a much larger ornamental fountain sprayed upward at the center of the plaza. Smoke and intriguing odors rose from a dozen forges and ovens.
The two villages were growing toward each other across the intervening valley, and it seemed likely that in time they would merge into a single entity. In time, Sterren thought, this might become a real city.
Semma Castle itself still stood, but its population had dropped drastically. Over the months, as the royal treasury and the castle stores gave out, the nobility had drifted away, fleeing the empire or, in a few cases, finding honest work. The royal family itself was still sticking it out, but most of the others had left.
The same thing, Sterren knew, had happened in all the former capitals, the castles and strongholds that had once ruled Ophkar, Ksinallion, Skaia, Thanoria, Hluroth, Akalla of the Diamond, Zhulura, Ghelua, Ansuon, Furnara, Kalshar, Quonshar, Dherimin, Karminora, Alboa,and Hend.
So far, Vond had definitely been good for the Small Kingdoms. He had dispossessed a few hundred nobles, but he had enriched thousands of peasants. He had killed a few dozen people in his conquests, but he had probably saved at least as many from starvation.
And he was doomed.
Sterren still found it hard to believe that Vond did not realize he was doomed. It was really fairly obvious. After all, all warlocks were doomed. Just finding a new power source would not change that. Sterren thought Vond had been given enough hints when he established the northern borders of his empire, but still the warlock did not see it.
It was not just that he was unwilling to admit it, either. If that were it, he would have cut back on his use of magic, but he hadn’t. He continued to lay roads, erect buildings, manipulate the weather, and at times to light the night sky in sheer celebration of his might.
Sterren had refrained from commenting, but after all these months, he was finally convinced that Vond deserved better. He deserved a warning, at the very least, a warning only Sterren could provide.
And, Sterren promised himself, he would deliver that warning.
The only catch was to figure out how to convince Vond that he, Sterren, had only recognized the danger now. If Vond knew that Sterren had withheld his certainty for so long he was likely to be very annoyed indeed.
Sterren did not care to have Vond annoyed with him. He was puzzling out an approach when someone behind him cleared a throat.
He turned and found a palace servant, a man named Ildirin who had once been a butcher’s assistant in Ksinallion, standing in the balcony door.
“Your pardon, my Lord Chancellor,” he said apologetically, “but the Emperor is meeting with the Council and desires your presence.”
“Now?”
“Yes, my lord,” Ildirin replied.
Sterren knew better than to argue or hesitate; Vond hated to be kept waiting. “Where?” he asked.
“In the council chamber.”
Sterren nodded, stepped past Ildirin into the palace, and headed towards the marble stairs.
Ildirin followed at a respectful distance. The council chamber had not been designed as such; after all, when Vond built his palace he had no idea that an Imperial Council would ever exist. He had intended the room to be an informal audience chamber, where he could meet with his cronies without the full pomp of the main audience hall, but still on a business basis rather than in his personal apartments.
Save for Sterren, however, who was usually welcome even in Vond’s private quarters, the warlock had no cronies. He had a council, instead, and so the informal audience chamber had become the council chamber.
The councillors could hardly he considered cronies; none of the seven liked Vond or particularly wanted to see him remain in power. All seven, however, were willing to recognize that the Empire of Vond was a reality and that it needed governing; and all seven were very good at governing.
Ordinarily, the Council went about its business, and Vond went about his business, and the two had as little to do with each other as possible, communicating with each other only through Sterren. For Vond to meet with the entire Council was unheard of.
Sterren hurried down the stairs, the wide sleeves of his velvet tunic flapping at his sides, and marched across the broad hallway at the bottom. The great red doors at the inner end of the hallway led into the audience chamber; the black doors at the outer end led out to the plaza. He ignored them both and headed directly for the small rosewood door that nestled unobtrusively in one corner.
His hand on the latch, he hesitated. He rapped lightly, then opened the door and walked in.
The seven councillors were seated at the table where they carried out most of their deliberations, three to a side. Their chairwoman, Lady Kalira, usually sat at the head of the table; today she was at the foot, and the Great Vond floated cross-legged at the head. He was only slightly higher than if he had been using a chair; his knees were below the polished wood of the table top.
“Ah, there you are!” Vond said when he saw Sterren step into the room.
“Here I am,” Sterren agreed. “What’s happening?” He looked about for somewhere to sit, or even somewhere better to stand, and spotted an unused chair. He turned it to face the warlock emperor, and asked, “May I sit?”
Vond waved permission. As he did, he caught sight of Ildirin peering in the doorway.
“I see you found him,” the warlock said. “Now go see if you can find us something appropriate to drink; I expect we’ll be doing a lot of talking, and talking is thirsty work.”
Ildirin bowed and vanished, closing the door behind him.
“Now,” Vond said, “I suppose you all want to know why we’re here, so I’ll get right to the point, which is that am I not at all sure I like this ’Imperial Council’ of yours.”
Sterren did not like the sound of that and decided that perhaps Vond was not in a mood to hear bad news today. He wondered whether he could somehow convey an anonymous message to the warlock.
The councillors glanced at one another, and some at Sterren, but after a second or two all eyes came to rest on Lady Kalira. She accepted her silent appointment as spokeswoman and rose. “Your Imperial Majesty,” she said in her accented Ethsharitic, “we serve at your pleasure. If you wish us to stop, we will stop, we will be glad to stop.”
Two or three heads bobbed in agreement; nobody indicated by even the slightest gesture or sound that he might think otherwise.
“Don’t be so quick to resign, either,” Vond snapped. “I know I need somebody to run things; I’m just not sure I want you. I’m not sure you’ve been running things the way I want them run.”
“We serve at your Imperial Majesty’s pleasure,” Lady Kalira repeated, bowing her head.
Her Ethsharitic had improved greatly over the past several months, Sterren noticed. Recognizing that it was the new language of government had driven her to study it far more seriously than mere curiosity had before. “That’s what you say here,” Vond said, “but I hear otherwise elsewhere. I hear whispers that you’re plotting to overthrow me, to restore the old monarchies. After all, you’re all aristocrats yourselves; why should you accept a
