The Unwelcome Warlock

“Should we start waking them up?”

Hanner considered that, then spread his hands. “No,” he said. “Let them rest while they can. We’re going to have a long day.”

Sensella nodded. “Do you have any idea how far it is to Ethshar?”

“Fifty leagues, maybe? Sixty? But I hope we won’t be walking that far; I’ve heard from the wizards.”

“What?”

“I heard from the wizards. In a dream.”

Sensella looked confused and unconvinced.

“It’s called the Spell of Invaded Dreams,” Hanner explained. “They can appear to you while you sleep. Someone named Rothiel of Wizard Street spoke to me.”

“I never heard of him. Are you sure it wasn’t just an ordinary dream?”

Hanner hesitated.

Up until she asked, he had never doubted the dream’s authenticity, but now that he thought about it, he had no actual proof that it had been magical in origin. The proof would come when Guildmaster Ithinia sent the promised aid.

“Well,” he said, “we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Chapter Ten

Ithinia of the Isle slumped in the wicker chair, drumming her fingers on its woven arm as she considered the reports she had just received. She had the latest accounts from the wizards she had assigned to investigate various matters, from her agents in the city guard and the overlord’s palace, from the network of spies the Guild maintained throughout the city and the Small Kingdoms, and from the witches and theurgists she had consulted. They all confirmed the simple, obvious truth.

The source of the warlocks’ magic was gone.

She supposed she should have expected this. That thing in Aldagmor had been calling for something for more than thirty years; was it really such a shock that it had finally been answered?

But who would have expected it to be so sudden?

Most of the mess wasn’t really significant. Ethshar had gotten along without warlocks for centuries, and it could get along without them again. Having a bunch of suddenly-powerless magicians around was a nuisance, but most of them would probably find places for themselves eventually. The ones who hadn’t yet been Called should be no problem at all.

That huge mob working its way south from Aldagmor, on the other hand, was more awkward. By wizardly standards most of them were young, and thanks to their now-vanished magic most of them were disgustingly healthy, so they should manage well enough, but Ethshar’s economy hadn’t had to absorb so many people all at once since the end of the Great War, and there would inevitably be some disruption.

She sighed. There would undoubtedly be some unfortunate results — more crime, more beggars, more slaves taken. A few decades, though, and it would all be out of the way. Wizards as old and powerful as Ithinia tended to take the long view.

Besides, if this sudden flood of people was too inconvenient, some of them could be removed. There were any number of spells that could trim excess population. Killing them would be ugly, and should be avoided if at all possible, but petrifying most of them until the situation improved wouldn’t be so very terrible; many of them were already decades out of their own time, and a few more years would scarcely matter. If anyone could perform Llarimuir’s Mass Transmogrification, they could be turned to trees or some other relatively inert creature; that might be preferable to petrifaction. Ithinia didn’t know the spell herself, but there were wizards far more powerful than she.

Those former warlocks in Aldagmor could be handled.

Vond, on the other hand, might be real trouble. According to every source that mentioned him, he still had his ability to draw warlock-like power from the towers in Lumeth. Details, unfortunately, were scarce; scrying spells directed at him had failed. This might be because no one knew his true name, and divinations directed at an individual were never reliable without that, or it might be that his new magic blocked wizardry just as much as true warlockry had. Certainly, every manifestation of his power to date had behaved exactly like warlockry.

Ithinia blinked as she considered that. The towers were sorcerous in nature — an ancient high sorcery that was long lost, not the feeble sort of thing modern sorcerers could do. Did that mean the Warlock Stone had been sorcerous in nature?

But everyone knew that warlockry was somehow related to witchcraft; then was witchcraft related to sorcery? It certainly didn’t appear to be.

She shook her head. This was not the time to ponder some grand theory of unified magic. She needed to decide what to do about Vond. He was reported to be on his way back to his empire, if he had not already reached it. The Wizards’ Guild could not simply ignore him if he had indeed returned to Semma; they had issued an edict that no warlocks were permitted within twenty leagues of Lumeth, and they could not allow Vond to defy that edict. The Guild did not assert its authority in such matters very often, but when it did, it had to be absolutely ruthless, giving not the slightest hint of weakness.

They would probably need to kill Vond. If it came to that, it had to be done quickly and effectively. That affair with Tabaea and her enchanted dagger had not done the Guild’s reputation any good at all, and they could not afford a repetition. If they did decide to kill Vond, it needed to work cleanly on the first attempt, and it needed to be very clear that this was the Guild enforcing its ultimatum.

The problem was, of course, that wizardry didn’t work properly on warlocks. Every warlock, no matter how feeble, was effectively guarded by powerful protective spells simply by being a warlock.

But that had only really been tested on ordinary warlocks; it was not clear whether it would hold true with Vond. He might be just as well protected as any other warlock, or he might be completely unguarded, or he might be totally immune to wizardry — no one knew, and there was no safe way to test it without his cooperation.

Somehow, Ithinia doubted that the Great Vond, self-proclaimed emperor, would agree to help wizards test his vulnerabilities. The question then became, what spell could be absolutely certain to kill Vond on the first attempt?

The Seething Death had worked on Tabaea, but it had done significant damage in the process, and stopping it had required the use of forbidden magic; Ithinia had no desire to see anything like that used against Vond.

The Call of Celestial Debris might work, but it would probably flatten half of Semma in the process. Since it involved purely physical projectiles, Vond’s magic shouldn’t interfere with the spell itself.

But on second thought, Ithinia realized, if he saw the meteors coming, he was probably powerful enough to deflect them. That wouldn’t do.

The Devouring Earth wouldn’t work; Vond could fly. He wouldn’t fall when the ground opened beneath him.

The Spell of the Smoke Noose would probably just evaporate when it hit his magical barriers, and from what Vond had done during his first reign it was possible he no longer needed to breathe, so even if it didn’t collapse, it might not kill him.

Zil’s Dehydration, Fendel’s Assassin, the Rune of the Implacable Stalker, the Spell of Ghastly Dissolution, the Cold Death, the White Curse — any of them might work, but none of them were certain...

“Mistress?”

She started at the sound of her manservant’s voice, and sat up. “Yes, Obdur?”

Obdur was standing in the door of the solarium; he bowed. “Chairman Zallin of the Council of Warlocks insists on speaking to you.”

“Zallin? Whatever for?”

“He did not say.”