any others who may return.”
“My intentions? Well, I don’t see any reason to cast them out into the streets-they’re our guests, and some of them have nowhere else to go but the Hundred-Foot Field.”
“Don’t be stupid, Hanner,” Alris said. “Of course there’s a reason. They’rewarlocks.”
Hanner glared at her. “I don’t see why that makes any difference. ”
“I’m afraid it does,” Bern said. “Quite aside from the bricks and torches that continue to be flung at the house, and the risk of damage from experimentation by the warlocks themselves, there is the question of what the authorities will do.”
“The authorities? You mean the overlord?”
“The city guard, yes. And the Wizards’ Guild. My lord, if they do set out to exterminate the warlocks, it would be far simpler for them to destroy that house, and everyone in it, than to kill the eleven of them one by one.”
“Destroy it how?” Hanner asked. “The overlord isn’t about to simply burn down a mansion in the New City-what if the fire spreads?”
“I wasn’t thinking of the overlord, my lord. I was thinking of the Wizards’ Guild.”
“Oh,” Hanner said.
He could hardly argue with that. Nobody really knew just what the Wizards’ Guild was capable of. They had a reputation for ruthlessness-though how well deserved it might be Hanner did not know. He could not think of any instance in his lifetime when the Wizards’ Guild had destroyed an entire house in the middle of the city-but he certainly couldn’t say they wouldn’t do it. They very well might.
One spell would probably be cheaper than eleven, and wizards were always aware of the costs of what they did.
Some people might argue that destroying a mansion full of valuables was a high cost in itself, but Hanner knew better. That wasn’t how the Guild thought. It wasn’ttheir mansion, and its destruction would reinforce the Guild’s reputation for fearsome-ness.
The Guild wanted to be feared. Hanner had learned that long ago in talking to the magicians in the Wizards’ Quarter. It was much easier to convince people to obey your orders if they were terrified of you. Smashing an entire mansion to pebbles and kindling, or burning it to the ground, or simply causing it to vanish, would provide exactly the sort of example that the Guild wanted— a demonstration that no one, no matter how wealthy or powerful, could defy them.
Uncle Faran had always believed that the Guild wanted power for its own sake, that they were building up their authority little by little with the goal of eventually ruling the World, and he had resented that. He had told Hanner that the Guild was virtually ruling the Worldnow, and that soon, when they were sure no one could oppose them effectively, they would do so openly. He had constantly sought ways to convince everyone of this, and ways to oppose the Guild’s plans.
Hanner had never believed a word of it, and he had tried for years to convince his uncle otherwise. It was plain to Hanner that Faran’s beliefs made no sense. After all, if the Wizards’ Guild wanted to rule the World openly, they could do it at any time. For all Uncle Faran’s theories and studies and bluster, he had never found anyone who could stand up to the Guild.
The closest he had ever come was the warlocks he led to the Palace, and all that had done was get him killed.
No, Hanner thought he knew what the Wizards’ Guild wanted. He had talked to dozens of wizards over the past few years, from the newest apprentices up to Guildmaster Ithinia, and they had told him what the Guild wanted, and he believed them.
What the Guild wanted was to avoid trouble.
The Guild had been created by the wizards near the end of the Great War, a little more than two centuries earlier, not to rule the World, but toprotect it-from wizards. They had foreseen the possibility that the great wizards of Ethshar, once the war was over and their common foe was finally destroyed, might fight among themselves. They had all seen, in the course of the fighting, what magic could do when used without restraint-the eastern portion of Old Ethshar was said to still be a lifeless desert, two hundred years after the war, and the devastation of the Northern Empire’s heartland was rumored to have been even more complete, though so far as Hanner knew no one had ever gone there to check.
So the wizards had made a pact-any magician who might cause trouble, any magician who became involved in government or who tried to combine too many skills, would be killed out of hand, before he could cause real trouble.
That was the Guild’s whole reason for existence, according to the wizards. Hanner believed it; Faran never had.
The Guild’s entire philosophy was to smash potential trouble before it became more than mere potential- take a little trouble now to prevent far more later.
Flattening a house full of warlocks would fit right in with that philosophy.
But the warlocks were Hanner’s guests. He had brought them there. No matter how dangerous their presence might be, he would not simply throw them out into the street.
But he might want to ask them to find another place.
“Who’s in charge there?” he asked. “Who’s leading the warlocks now that Uncle Faran is dead?”
Bern and Alris exchanged glances.
“Youare,” Alris said. “At least, that’s what they want.”
“That’s another reason I’m here,” Bern said quickly before Hanner could respond. “After Lord Faran died they chose Manrin as their new leader, but thenhe died, as well. Some wanted Ulpen next, but he’s still so young, just an apprentice, that the others objected, and he refused. So now they inviteyou to come lead them. Zarek in particular spoke strongly in favor of the idea-he says it wasyou, not Lord Faran, who first gathered them together on the Night of Madness.”
“I was hoping no one would remember that,” Hanner said.
“But Hanner can’t lead them!” Mavi protested. “He’s not even a warlock.”
Hanner looked at her.
He could refuse. He could agree with Mavi that it was absurd for a nonwarlock to lead a band of warlocks. He could evict them from his house and go live there in peace, a young man of good birth and inherited wealth; he could court Mavi and maybe marry her, and they could live there together. He could let the warlocks fend for themselves, let them be scattered, perhaps forced into exile or killed off by the city guard or the Wizards’ Guild.
It really wasn’t his problem. He hadn’t asked for any of this. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
But neither had any of the other warlocks.
Someone had to lead them. Someone had to show them what they could do and represent them to the World. Hanner had gathered them, then abdicated his position to Uncle Faran.
But Faran had gotten himself killed. As had Manrin, less than a day later. And the warlocks had now chosen Hanner to lead them, even though none but Sheila knew he was one of them.
The job certainly wasn’t safe, but Hanner felt he could avoid it no longer. It was time to stop delaying, stop his pretenses that he could ever return to his old life.
“I’ll go,” he said. “Mavi-Iam a warlock.”
Chapter Forty
For a long moment the room was silent as the others stared at him in shock. Then Alris laughed.
“Ha!” she said. “I should have known. You acted so strange sometimes! And that girl, Sheila-she knew, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” Manner admitted. “She knows.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Mavi said, and Manner could hear the hurt in her voice. “You never said a word!”
“Mavi, I didn’t know at first,” Manner said hastily. “And you said...” Then he stopped, realizing he was once
