The Unwelcome Warlock

would do without you!”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Kirris crouched in the closet, alone in the dark, trying to stop trembling. She was terrified. This was not what was supposed to happen.

Vond had been fooled by her remembered dream, but only for a moment. He had figured out the truth with frightening speed. That did not fit Kirris’ expectations; she had been given the impression that the emperor was a rather stupid man. He did not seem stupid now.

At least he had not guessed all the details. He had accepted the idea that he had been the target of the Spell of Invaded Dreams. That meant he had not assumed the magician responsible for his nightmare was nearby, since wizardry could work at great distances, and he had not gone looking for the perpetrator. If he had realized the dream came from a witch, he could have easily found Kirris — found her, and killed her.

Her first reaction had been to think that she had to get out, and get away, but then she had caught herself. If she was seen fleeing, that would be highly suspicious. Vond had no reason to suspect her presence, and if she stayed here, in the mansion, she could spy on him, and perhaps do some good.

Staying in the closet would be suspicious, too, of course. She had to slip out and find somewhere else — an empty bed, perhaps. Unfortunately, she could not get out as easily as she had gotten in; other people had been awakened by the racket when Vond awoke and smashed his way through the ceiling, and were standing outside the bedroom door, talking quietly. Getting past them unnoticed would be difficult; they would be alert, and her usual distraction spell would not be reliable.

Kirris listened as Vond talked to Hanner, and she read the emotions of the woman in Vond’s bed — Leth, he had called her. Kirris could not hear Leth’s thoughts through the closet wall, and through the haze of magical energy Vond was creating by levitating himself, but she could sense what the other woman was feeling. She was oddly calm. Part of that was sleepiness and the happy relaxation that followed hours of passion, but even so, she seemed surprisingly unsurprised. Maybe she had had previous experience with powerful warlocks.

Leth did not really matter, though, so far as Kirris was concerned; it was Vond who was the problem. He was talking to Hanner, and Hanner was answering his questions, and then Hanner was going off on some errand, and Vond had descended back into his bedchamber. He told Leth to get dressed and go, and Kirris could sense Leth debating, as she retrieved her tunic and skirt, whether or not to demand her money now. Vond was paying her no attention at all, but reassembling the ceiling he had smashed.

The ease with which he restored broken beams, torn fabric, and shattered plaster to its former undamaged state was frightening; Kirris did not remember any of the other warlocks she had known having that much power and control.

She could not stay in the closet; Vond might notice her as he checked for damage to repair. She quickly opened the closet and headed for the bedroom door. She had belatedly realized that the former warlocks would find nothing suspicious about her presence; to them, she would be one more house-guest curious about all the racket. She tried to project her customary don’t-notice-me magic, but she knew her effort was shaky.

She stepped out into the lamp-lit corridor just as Leth emerged from Vond’s chamber. Kirris met the other woman’s gaze, and realized she had been so intent on not being seen by Vond or noticed by the other guests that she had done nothing at all to avoid Leth’s attention.

There were a dozen other people standing in the hall or on the stairs, drawn by the shaking and noise, and several of them glanced at Kirris — her witchcraft was not effective in her agitated state. Others stared at Leth, in her red skirt and low-cut tunic, as she ambled toward the grand staircase.

Then Hanner came trotting down the stairs at the other end of the passage, a candle in his hand, and it didn’t matter whether Kirris had been noticed or not, as the former chairman’s presence distracted everyone. Kirris was able to reshape her spell, reinforcing it so that no one would see her unless they actively looked. As she did, several voices called out.

“Hanner!”

“Chairman!”

“My lord!”

“I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now,” Hanner said, as he hurried past and headed for the grand staircase down to the ground floor. He called back over his shoulder, “Don’t bother the emperor! He was disturbed, and didn’t appreciate it!”

Leth turned at the sound of Hanner’s voice and stepped to one side, letting him pass; he paused as he did, and murmured something to her that Kirris did not catch.

She grimaced. She had still had her attention and her magic focused elsewhere. Still, she doubted whatever Hanner had said to the streetwalker was important. Kirris watched Hanner go, and Leth follow him down the steps at a far more leisurely pace. The witch tried to decide what she should do next. The whole false-Calling scheme was obviously a complete failure. Vond had seen through it almost immediately. He was not going to be frightened out of using his magic as easily as Ithinia and the others had hoped. He was still dangerous, and still drawing power from those towers in Lumeth that Ithinia said were essential to the World’s existence.

Kirris wondered whether it might have been possible to talk Vond out of using his magic by simply telling him how much was at risk, how much harm he would do if he damaged the towers. If it ever had been — and she had doubts about that — it probably was not possible any more, now that he had been antagonized by that dream.

Killing him would be the simplest solution. Ithinia could turn him to stone, or maybe Demerchan would remove him in some mysterious fashion. But Ithinia had hoped to avoid that, as she did not want to anger Lord Azrad, or risk open warfare with Vond, with the chance of massive damage to his surroundings.

And there was the chance that killing him might cause some sort of backlash, and damage the towers. Since the nature of his link to them was completely unknown, so were its effects. It seemed very unlikely that killing him would do any real harm to his power source, but they couldn’t be completely sure.

In any case, Kirris wasn’t going to kill him. She doubted she could. Witchcraft was too similar to warlockry to bypass his defenses undetected, and his magic was a hundred times more powerful than hers. He could easily block any direct attack she might make.

She couldn’t kill him. She couldn’t remove his ability to work magic. She couldn’t fool him into giving it up.

There was that magical tapestry upstairs, leading into a world where warlockry could not reach; if she could trick him into touching the tapestry, and somehow block the return, that would render the Great Vond completely harmless — but how could she do that? Vond wasn’t that stupid. If he had seen through the dream so quickly, he would know better than to go near the tapestry.

Maybe Ithinia or Teneria could think of a way to get Vond into that tapestry, but Kirris couldn’t. Instead, she would stay in Warlock House for the night, since leaving at this hour would draw attention, and she would do nothing drastic. She would watch and see what Vond was up to, but in the morning, she thought, her best course of action would be to go back to Ithinia and report what had happened, and leave it up to the Guild, or the cult of Demerchan, or someone else, to decide what must be done. She had given the dream idea a good try, and it had failed; she had done her part and could now leave with her head held high and let others handle the problem.

She paused to take one final look at what Vond was doing behind the carved door of his bedchamber, but before she could bring her magic to bear that door opened again, and the emperor himself emerged, floating several inches off the ground and glowing eerily orange. Kirris wondered how a black robe could glow orange, but somehow it did.

The warlock paused, hovering at the top of the stair, and looked over the dozen or so people watching him. “My comrades,” he said. “You were all Called, I take it? You shared that experience with me?”

Several of the observers exchanged uneasy glances. About half of them made low noises of agreement. Kirris said nothing, and kept her gaze fixed firmly on Vond.