The Unwelcome Warlock

risks.

He knew that no witch had ever managed to undo the transformation that made someone a warlock in the first place. Every so often an apprentice warlock would have second thoughts, especially if his master began having the nightmares that were the first real sign of the Call, and want to back out of becoming a warlock, but it couldn’t be done — warlocks couldn’t undo the change without killing the apprentice, witches couldn’t reverse it, wizards’ restorative spells couldn’t touch it. Theurgists said the gods couldn’t even see warlocks, so they couldn’t help.

That was all moot now that there were no more warlocks — or it would be, if not for Vond and his second source.

But witches’ limited ability to suppress warlockry might be useful somehow in dealing with Vond. Ithinia had probably thought of that.

It wasn’t his problem, Sterren reminded himself. He had himself and his family to worry about, and other people could deal with warlocks and witches and empires for now. He slung one bundle on his left shoulder and carried the other in his right hand as he hurried down the stairs and out of Warlock House.

The temperature was dropping, and the sky was gray and threatening; Sterren thought it might rain, or even snow, in another hour or so. He turned west on High Street, heading back toward Emmis’ office in Spicetown, but not before taking a quick glance around. He pretended not to notice the gargoyle perched on the house across the street, a gargoyle that had never been there before. He ignored the spriggan that clung to the iron fence and stared at him. He paid no attention to the shimmer in the air above Warlock House, and in fact, he wasn’t sure just what sort of magic that might be — sorcery, perhaps?

And he genuinely didn’t see the woman who was loitering by the gate. Where it was Sterren’s idea to ignore the other signs of magical attention, it was the woman’s decision not to be seen. She wasn’t actually invisible; rather, she simply made sure that Sterren never quite looked at her. It wasn’t a talent witches bragged about, but it was a useful one, and Teneria of Fishertown was good at it.

If Sterren had seen her, though, he would have been relieved to know that a witch was there, taking an interest. The more other people concerned themselves, the less responsible he felt he needed to be, and he really did not want the responsibility of dealing with Vond.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Hanner did not want to knock, but he forced himself to raise his fist and rap his knuckles on the door. He hated being back here on Mustard Street. He did not want to see Mavi again — at least, not so soon, and not under these circumstances, when he was still in the same clothes and had done so little to make a new place for himself. The heavy overcast and cold wind that soured his mood did not help.

He had no choice, though, if he wanted to provide a refuge for former warlocks. Arvagan had been very definite — the tapestry had been Hanner’s property, and had therefore been delivered to his heirs when he was Called. It had been brought to Mavi at Warlock House, and Arvagan had no idea what happened to it after that. “You’ll have to ask your wife,” he said.

“Ex-wife,” Hanner had answered, and the wizard had turned up an empty hand.

“Ex-wife, then,” he said. “I gave it to her, and haven’t seen it since.”

It could have been worse, Hanner told himself as he waited for an answer to his knock. At least Arvagan had still been operating the same shop, and had remembered the tapestry in question. The tapestry hadn’t been destroyed, so far as the wizard knew, nor sold.

And it wasn’t raining yet.

The door opened, and Mavi was standing there, but Hanner barely had time to recognize her before he was almost knocked backward by someone else shrieking, “Hanner!” and throwing her arms around him. “You’re alive!”

“Ah,” he said. “Who?” He looked down at the plump, dark-haired woman embracing him, her face buried in his shoulder. She lifted her head to look up at him, and he exclaimed, “Nerra!” She was heavier than when he last saw her, and her face was showing signs of age, but it was unmistakably his sister.

“Hanner,” she said, hugging him again. “We thought you were dead for so long, and then there were stories about warlockry not working, and the Called coming back, so I came to ask Mavi if she had seen you, and here you are!”

“Here I am,” he agreed, hugging her back. “It’s good to see you.” He decided not to mention that from his point of view, he had seen her — a much younger her — scarcely a month ago.

“What’s happened?” Nerra asked, raising her head and releasing her hold. “And...you haven’t changed! You look so young!”

“I...” He hardly knew where to begin. He looked over his sister’s head at Mavi.

“Hello, Hanner,” she said. “I wrote them out for you.” She reached over to a table by the door and held up a sheet of paper.

“What?”

“The children’s addresses. Isn’t that what you came back for?”

“Oh — actually, no,” Hanner admitted.

“Then what? You didn’t know Nerra was here, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” Hanner said, looking back to his sister. “That was a pleasant surprise.”

“Then what did you want?”

Mavi and Nerra were both staring at him in a most distracting manner — Mavi, who he would have expected to be affectionate if not for last night’s events, looked downright hostile, while Nerra, who had never been very demonstrative of family feeling, looked almost adoring. Hanner could not get his thoughts sufficiently in order to answer.

“I see you didn’t bring your whore with you,” Mavi. “Did you think I might reconsider taking you back?”

“She’s not my whore,” Hanner protested. “She’s a fellow Called warlock. And I’m here on behalf of other Called warlocks — I need to know what happened to the tapestry I commissioned.”

Mavi’s stare changed from hostile to puzzled. “The one that got you Called?” she asked.

He started to argue that the tapestry hadn’t been responsible for his Calling, but caught himself before a single word escaped. It had gotten him Called, after a fashion, by letting him lower his guard, and besides, that didn’t matter anymore. “Yes,” he said. “That one.”

“We put it in storage with your uncle’s old things. I didn’t want it, and I thought maybe the Council would find a use for it someday. I thought maybe they could figure out what went wrong, why it didn’t work the way you expected.”

Again he was tempted to argue, since the tapestry had worked more or less as he had expected, but he resisted. “In storage? Where?”

“In the house on High Street, of course. Up on the fourth floor.”

So it had been right there in Warlock House all along? Or perhaps not — there was no telling what the Council might have done with it in the seventeen years since his Calling. “Where?” he asked again.

“I can show you,” Nerra said, before Mavi could reply. “Alris and I helped sort through your belongings after you...after you left.”

Startled, Hanner said, “You did? You can?”

“I’d be happy to. It will give us a chance to talk.”

“I’d like that,” Hanner said. “Thank you.” He turned to Mavi. “I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

He was caught completely off-guard, as completely as when he had emerged from the tapestry world into the attic of Warlock House and been hit by the renewed Calling, when Mavi burst into tears. He stood, silent and helpless, as she sobbed; he wanted to reach out for her, to comfort her, but she was no longer his wife; it wouldn’t be right. He started to reach toward her anyway, before he could stop himself, but she pulled away. He felt a tightness in his own throat, and a stinging in his eyes; he blinked.

Nerra turned to Mavi, and gave Hanner a shove. “Wait outside,” she said, stepping back into the house and closing the door.