The Unwelcome Warlock

remember me — and that’s the ones who are still alive. Who else could I have? And I never had a home to go to; I was sleeping in soldiers’ beds, or on tavern floors, before you found me on the Night of Madness. If you throw me out, it’s a hard choice whether to go back to the streets of Camptown, or just head directly to the Hundred-Foot Field, or maybe give up completely and see if I can get a fair deal on Slave Street.”

Hanner didn’t really see why that would be so hard a choice, since she was still as young and beautiful as she had been before the Night of Madness. Whoring might be a horrible way to make a living, but it surely must be better than begging or slavery.

He didn’t say that, though; it wasn’t his business. Instead he said, “I wasn’t going to throw you out. I was worried that...that you might be missed.”

“Anyone who missed me has had thirty years to get over it.”

Hanner could not argue with that. Mavi hadn’t waited for him, and he had been gone only half as long as Rudhira. “There’s something I want to show you, up on the fourth floor,” he said.

She eyed him suspiciously, and threw a glance at Nerra.

“We aren’t going to hurt you,” Nerra told her. “We need a volunteer to test something, though.”

“Something magic?” Rudhira asked. “And presumably dangerous, if you’re worried about whether anyone will miss me if I don’t come back.”

“It’s magic, yes,” Hanner said. “It’s not exactly dangerous. I mean, it won’t kill you. Come upstairs, and I’ll explain.”

“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Nerra assured her. “But we’d appreciate it if you at least took a look at it and gave it some thought.”

Rudhira essayed a curtsey. “For you, Lady Nerra, I will take a look.”

Together, the three marched back up the two flights to the fourth floor, and into the front bedroom where two dormer windows overlooked High Street, and Hanner’s Transporting Tapestry hung on the north wall.

Hanner stepped aside as soon as he was through the door, and watched as Rudhira took in the hanging tapestry, its sunny colors so bright they seemed to glow, and the discarded old non-magical tapestry lying heaped on the floor. She glanced at the canopied bed and the twin night-stands badly in need of dusting, at the gold-edged ewer, the unlit oil lamps, and the other furnishings, and Hanner could see her dismissing them as irrelevant and focusing her attention on the magical hanging.

“Is that what it appears to be?” she asked, standing well back and studying the scene from a safe distance.

“It’s a Transporting Tapestry, like the ones the wizards brought for the people from the other two Ethshars,” Hanner replied. “If you walk up to it and touch it, you’ll step through into the place in the picture.”

“That’s what you want me to test?” Rudhira frowned. “Where’s the difficulty? It either works or it doesn’t, right? Or is there some way it can go horribly wrong?”

“I don’t think it can go horribly wrong,” Hanner said. “It worked fine seventeen years ago. But we aren’t completely sure you can get back.”

“I can’t just turn around and walk back through it?”

“No,” Hanner said. “It’s not there on the other side. You’ll be in an empty field, with no way to come back through this tapestry.”

“I see,” Rudhira said. She looked over the tapestry, not moving any closer to the fabric. “You say it worked seventeen years ago? Someone went through it?”

“I did,” Hanner said. “I wanted a place where warlocks would be safe from the Calling.” He gestured at the tapestry. “I found one, in there. But then I came back out, and was Called before I could tell anyone it was safe.”

“So there is a way out?”

“There was,” Hanner said. “We don’t know whether it’s still there, and still working, or not.”

“Ah, and that’s what you want me to test?”

“Exactly.”

“And if it isn’t still there?”

Hanner and Nerra looked at one another.

“We hadn’t really thought that part through yet,” Hanner admitted.

“We would find a way to get you back out,” Nerra said.

“But it might take awhile,” Hanner said. “Possibly a year or more. Probably not that long, but it’s possible.” He hoped they would be able to find some other way to retrieve Rudhira if she became trapped in the tapestry’s world, perhaps by buying or borrowing an existing tapestry, but in the worst case, he would commission another new one.

Paying for it might be a challenge, though. He hadn’t discussed money with Nerra yet, and while he was sure his family wouldn’t let him starve, paying for a new tapestry was something else entirely.

Rudhira considered the blue sky, the golden sunlight, the green grass. Wherever that was, it certainly looked warmer than Ethshar was right now. “Tell me about the return magic,” she said.

Hanner let his breath out with a sigh of relief; he hadn’t realized he was holding it. “You see those houses there?” he said, pointing.

“They’re pretty,” Rudhira said.

“Yes, they are,” Hanner agreed. “Well, in that one, on the right, there’s another tapestry — or there was, anyway. Arvagan’s apprentice hung it there seventeen years ago, and it brought me back to Ethshar. If it’s still there, and it works, it will transport you to the attic, right above us.”

“Right here in this same house?”

Hanner nodded. “Yes,” he said.

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“If you aren’t back in an hour, I’ll go talk to a wizard about the best way to get you out,” Hanner said. “We’ll use the Spell of Invaded Dreams to let you know what I learn.”

“And if it does work?”

“Then you’ll be back safely.”

She looked at him with an unreadable expression. “I mean,” she said, “what are you going to do with this thing? Why is this so important?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hanner said, and barely prevented himself from adding, “I thought it was obvious.” He smiled. “This is somewhere all the Called warlocks can live. Those houses are empty — or they were seventeen years ago, anyway. It’s warm and sunny, there’s water from a lovely little stream just over the hill, the sea is over that way — it should be a fine place to live.”

“Live?” Rudhira studied the tapestry again, her expression rather different; where before she had appeared to be peering closely, taking in every detail, now she seemed to be leaning back, looking for a general impression.

“You’d be welcome to live there, if you want to,” Hanner said. “But please come back and let us know it’s possible, first.”

“If you don’t want to risk it, we can find someone else,” Nerra said.

“Oh, no, my lady,” Rudhira said. “I’ll try it. No need to risk anyone else.”

“That’s not what —” Hanner began, but before he could finish the sentence Rudhira had stepped forward, hand outstretched. He started forward instinctively, intending to stop her, even though this was exactly what he had wanted her to do.

But then her fingers touched the cloth and she was gone, leaving Hanner and Nerra alone in the unused bedroom.

For a moment, the two of them stared at the tapestry. Then Nerra said, “I like her. Shall we go upstairs and wait?”

Hanner nodded. He was unsure why he had reached out to stop her, and why he felt so uncomfortable that Rudhira had gone through the tapestry; wasn’t that what he had wanted? The sight of her disappearance had been almost painful, but he didn’t understand why. He tore his gaze away from the tapestry and followed his sister back