The Unwelcome Warlock

eighty-six dead, but we may have missed some. We couldn’t get an exact count on the living.”

“You...I understood your group to be warlocks who somehow survived the Calling.”

“That’s right,” Hanner said, starting to become annoyed. “We all survived the Calling. It turns out that the Calling itself was never fatal. The deaths here all occurred after it ended, when some of us were crushed, or fell out of the sky. Most of the dead were people who had been in Aldagmor on the Night of Madness — they were crushed to death, or smothered, as they were at the bottom of the pile when we woke up. We’ve dealt with the dead as best we could, and now we’re all trying to go home — at least, those of us who still have homes; it seems dragons have claimed eastern Aldagmor for themselves, so the survivors from that area are homeless.”

“But fifteen thousand —”

“Wizard,” Hanner said, trying not to lose his temper, “every single person who was ever Called, from the Night of Madness right up to the last few days, just woke up in the wilderness where the Warlock Stone used to be. Our theurgists managed to get us a three-day supply of food, but none of them can get us back to civilization — our best priestess, Alladia of Shiphaven, says that Asham the Gate-Keeper could do it, but she can’t remember how to invoke him, and none of the others were ever at her level. We’re getting water from the streams running down out of the mountains, but even that isn’t going to be enough for all of us. We are in desperate straits. Dumery and his dragon chased us out of the immediate area where we woke up, but there are so many of us that by the time we had laid out the dead for cremation, and made arrangements to transport the injured, we were scarcely able to cover two leagues before we had to stop for the night — and even that left most of us with aching feet; we aren’t accustomed to walking. We are bound for Ethshar of the Spices because it’s the closest of the great cities; we cannot head toward Sardiron because the dragons’ nesting ground is in the way. There are no roads out here. We have no one who knows the route with any certainty. We think there are wild beasts in the area — not just dragons, but other creatures that have taken advantage of Aldagmor’s depopulation. There may be other dangers, as well; we don’t know. Some of us are fairly sure we have homes and families waiting, while others have been gone for ten or twenty or thirty years and have no idea what the World is like now, or whether anyone remembers us. If the Wizards’ Guild can help us, we will be grateful for whatever aid you provide.”

“Of course.” Rothiel was recovering quickly from his surprise. “My apologies, Chairman; I admit we thought Dumery must have been exaggerating, but clearly he was not. We will see what can be done. We’ll put out the word that all Called warlocks are returning; some of you may indeed be hearing from friends and relatives soon.”

“Thank you!” Hanner said, greatly relieved.

“Is there anyone you would like us to speak to on your own behalf?”

“Oh,” Hanner said. The question had caught him off-guard.

“The current Chairman of the Council of Warlocks for Ethshar of the Spices is Zallin of the Mismatched Eyes; would you like us to inform him that you’re alive?”

Hanner started; he remembered Zallin of the Mismatched Eyes. That annoying youngster was now chairman? He had been only a year or two out of his apprenticeship, and very fond of stupid jokes, when Hanner last saw him; Hanner could almost still hear his irritating bray of a laugh.

“No, I don’t care about him,” Hanner said. “But if you could find my wife, Mavi of Newmarket — is she safe? Is she well?”

“I’ll see what I can find out.”

“And our children — we have three children. They must be grown by now.”

“I will make inquiries.”

Hanner had already made a few inquiries of his own, asking warlocks who had been Called after him, but no one seemed very sure what had become of his family. That worried him.

Most of the warlocks he had known who were Called before him had turned out to be alive and unhurt; he had found Rudhira of Camptown, and Varrin the Weaver, and Desset of Eastwark, and most of the others who he had gathered on the Night of Madness. He had found other warlocks he had known through his seventeen years as Chairman of the Council of Warlocks. He had talked to several warlocks who had been Called after him, from Goran the Tall, who appeared to have flown north just a few days after Hanner himself, to Sensella of Morningside, who never did quite reach the Source.

But he hadn’t found anyone who knew what had happened to Mavi, or to Faran, Arris, and Hala.

“Is there anything else, Chairman?”

“Ithinia might want to know this, if she doesn’t already — Emperor Vond is still alive and still able to work magic.”

“Emperor Vond?”

“Yes. He was after my time, but from what the others have told me, surely you’ve heard of him?”

“I don’t understand,” Rothiel said. “I know the name, but wasn’t the Great Vond a warlock who was Called fifteen years ago?”

“Yes, he was,” Hanner said. “Or so I am told; I never met him, so far as I recall, and as I said, he didn’t build his empire until after I was gone.”

“But warlocks can’t do magic any more, can they?”

“Most of us, no, or we wouldn’t be here, but apparently Vond can. I thought Ithinia should be told.”

“How is that possible?”

Hanner glared at the wizard. “How should I know? I can’t do magic anymore! You’re a wizard; you figure it out.”

“Is Vond with your group, then?”

“No. He flew off yesterday morning. He took eighty or ninety volunteers with him to reclaim his empire, which I’m told is somewhere in the Small Kingdoms.”

“Volunteers?” Rothiel’s expression was a mix of fear and bafflement. “Can they still do magic?”

“No. Or at least, they couldn’t when they left; for all I know, Vond may have taught them by now.”

“This is very disturbing news. Can any of the other warlocks with you use any magic?”

“We have about half a dozen theurgists, maybe a score of witches, and a few others, including a handful of wizards and former wizards, but if you mean can anyone else still use warlockry, none that I know of. Someone might be hiding it, I suppose, but I don’t know why anyone would.”

“Theurgists and witches?” The fear had passed, but Rothiel’s confusion was more obvious than ever. “I thought you were all warlocks.”

“We were,” Hanner said. “How old are you?”

“I don’t see —”

“How old are you?”

“I don’t see what it has to do with anything, but I’m thirty-one.”

“Thank you; that’s about what I would have guessed, but one can never be sure with wizards. Then you don’t remember the Night of Madness, but you must have heard about it.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then you know that in that one night, thousands of people went off to Aldagmor, never to be seen again.”

“Well, yes, but —”

“And you must have heard that it seemed to strike almost at random.”

“Yes.”

“If you choose three or four thousand people at random from the population of the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, how many of them do you think will be magicians?”

“Oh.” Understanding spread across Rothiel’s face.

“Now do you see? Most of our magicians were Called on the Night of Madness, snatched away in the middle of the night, without their supplies. A few who became warlocks that night without being Called immediately went on to give up their other magic and live for a time as warlocks, but now that they’ve lost their warlockry, their old magic has returned — though as you might guess, they’re badly out of practice.”