The Unwelcome Warlock

“Pretty much, yes,” he said.

“I’m not. I’m not afraid of anything.”

Sterren remembered Vond cowering in his palace, trying desperately to resist the Calling; if Sterren was any judge, the warlock emperor had been terrified. But if he chose to forget or ignore that, Sterren was not inclined to argue, because Sterren was a coward, by some measures. He was afraid of a great many things. He tried not to let that interfere with doing what needed to be done, and he might try to hide it from others, but he wasn’t going to pretend to himself that he wasn’t scared by Vond, and by the Wizards’ Guild, and by any number of other things.

To Vond, those miserable nights of fighting Aldagmor’s pull had been just a few days ago. He was probably still at the stage of being embarrassed by his own fear, and trying to deny it. In a few years he might admit that yes, he had been frightened, but right now, Sterren thought, Vond was trying to demonstrate, to himself as much as to anyone else, that he was a brave man, and that the Calling had not reduced him to a whimpering child.

“Of course not; why should you be?” Sterren said. “You’re the Great Vond.”

“Exactly!” Vond was staring at the Tower of Flame again. “Do you know why I asked whether you could see energy?”

“No.”

“Because I wanted to talk to you about that fire.”

Sterren looked past Vond’s legs at the flames. “What about it?”

“It’s not really flame, in the usual sense,” Vond said. “It’s...it’s something else, something I’ve never seen anywhere else.”

“Well, yes,” Sterren said. “It’s magic.”

“Yes, I know that,” Vond said. “But I’ve never seen magic quite like it. I’ve never seen anything magical that was so big before. Usually when I watch wizardry in action it’s all sort of vague — I can’t focus on it. It’s as if it’s not really all there, or as if I’m seeing it through a dirty window. But this thing has a pattern to it; there are streaks of...of unreality, woven together with something that looks and feels like fire, but...the actual fire isn’t there anymore. We’re seeing a fire that burned a long time ago, trapped in magic and reflected over and over.”

“Really?” Sterren stared at the flame, but all he saw was flame.

“Yes. And I think I see how I could break it.”

“What?”

“I think I see how I could break the pattern. I could put it out.”

Sterren stared up at Vond’s back, then back at the tower. “Legend has it that various wizards tried to put it out, off and on for seventy or eighty years, and never managed it,” he said.

“They were wizards. I’m a warlock.”

Sterren nodded. “So you are,” he said.

“I’m very tempted to do it, just to see if I really can,” Vond said.

“That would be a disappointment to the local guides who bring visitors up here to see it,” Sterren said.

“Oh? I suppose it would. I hadn’t thought about them. I was wondering, though, whether it would upset the Wizards’ Guild if I snuffed their little candle.”

“You could really just...snuff it out?”

Vond hesitated. “Well, actually,” he said, “I’m not sure. I know I could break the pattern that holds it together, but I’m not sure where all that...that stuff, that magic, would go. It might just disappear.”

Sterren did not like the sound of that. “Might?”

“Or it might explode,” Vond said.

Sterren considered that for a moment, then said, “I’d rather not be here when you try it, then.”

“Good point,” Vond said. “And there are those guides you mentioned. But I might want to try it someday.”

“If you’re worried about annoying the Guild, you could just ask them if they mind. For all I know, they’d be glad to get rid of it.”

“That’s very true.” Vond contemplated the burning pillar for a moment longer, then raised an empty palm and turned away to the west. “It can wait, then. On to Ethshar!”

“On to Ethshar,” Sterren echoed, without much enthusiasm.

But as they flew on, and the Tower of Flame receded behind them, it struck him that being Called had mellowed Vond a little. At the height of his power, when he was paving highways and erecting his palace and reshaping various bits of landscape, he would have tested his theory and blown out the flame immediately, without worrying about the Guild or the guides or Sterren. His caution was a good sign.

But he was still insanely dangerous, and Sterren was looking forward to getting as far away from him as possible once they reached Ethshar.

Chapter Seventeen

The house on Mustard Street was unremarkable. It stood three stories tall on the west side of the street, half a block north of Inlet Street. It was about twenty feet wide, with a central door flanked by shuttered windows; candlelight leaked through the slats. The eaves above him were carved, though the night was too dark for Hanner to see what they represented; the doorposts, which were more visible, were carved to resemble trees wrapped in flowering vines. There were no shrines, signs, or other displays in sight.

Hanner stared at the house for a moment. He glanced back at Rudhira, who had accompanied him from Ithinia’s house, then stepped forward, squared his shoulders, and knocked.

He heard muffled voices inside, and waited, and a moment later the door opened a crack. “Yes?” a familiar female voice asked. A burning candle appeared in the opening, held up to illuminate the caller’s face.

Before Hanner could reply, that familiar voice said, “Hanner?”

The candle dropped and went out, and Hanner heard thumping as the person who had held it stumbled back against the wall of the entryway.

“Mavi?” he called. “Mavi of Newmarket?”

“Mavi?” another man’s voice called from inside the house.

Hanner stepped back. He was unsure what was happening in there, but he did not think barging in would improve the situation. There was more thumping, and some rattling, and Mavi’s voice said something Hanner couldn’t catch.

That voice was different. When she had spoken previously, Hanner had not been sure that it was Mavi; the voice had been familiar, but had not carried that instant recognition that it always had before. It had changed in his absence.

Once again, he forced himself to remember that he had been gone for seventeen years, even though it felt like less than a sixnight. His sudden reappearance had obviously come as a shock. He waited on the step, giving his wife time to recover.

He heard that man’s voice again, and then the door was flung open and light spilled out into the street, silhouetting a tall man’s figure. A woman was peering over the man’s right shoulder, and holding a candle aloft.

Hanner blinked. Mavi had changed. Oh, there could be no question that the woman holding the candle was his wife, but her hair was shorter and streaked with gray, her face was wider and lined with age, and her expression as she stared at him wasn’t her usual calm half-smile, but a look verging on horror.

“Who are you?” the man in the doorway demanded.

“Hanner,” Hanner replied. “Formerly Hanner the Warlock, now just Hanner. Who are you?”

“My name is Terrin Adar’s son,” he replied. “What do you mean, formerly Hanner