The Unwelcome Warlock

get all those people out of there. I will not tolerate having them in my house, in a place I cannot go.”

“But your Majesty, I don’t —”

“Now.”

“Of course, your Majesty,” Hanner said, taking a step toward the tapestry, “but you understand, it may take awhile. I don’t know how big that...that place is; I was only in there very briefly. They may have spread out. There may be hiding places.”

“Get in there and get them out!”

Hanner bowed. “Yes, your Majesty!” He turned, took a deep breath, and stepped through the tapestry.

Warlock House vanished, and he was standing on a grassy slope, looking down at the golden village. The air was sweet with the scent of flowers and the sea, and he heard happy voices somewhere in the distance.

Then someone exclaimed, “By all the gods and the stars! It’s Hanner!”

Hanner turned to look back the way he had just come, but instead of the tapestry and the dusty bedroom he saw half a dozen people sitting cross-legged in a circle on the grass, surrounded by half-finished baskets and crude tools. They were all wearing either worn nightclothes or warlock black, but most appeared to have washed out the worst of the grime they had accumulated on the journey back from Aldagmor.

They were staring at him. He recognized them as people he had sent through the tapestry, but could not remember any of their names. He was not sure he had ever learned any.

“Hanner the Generous!” a woman said.

“Welcome to the Refuge, Hanner!”

“Go tell Rudhira.” The woman who said that nudged the girl next to her, who sprang up and dashed past Hanner, down the slope toward the village.

“Rudhira’s here?” Hanner asked, startled.

“She has been for hours,” said the young man who had welcomed him. He got to his feet, brushing bits of something from his tunic.

“Maybe days,” called the woman who had sent the girl running.

The young man grinned. “Maybe days,” he agreed. “We can’t tell time here.”

Hanner blinked, and looked up at the sky, and at the sun that hung there.

“It doesn’t move,” the woman said, following his gaze. “At all. It’s always exactly where it is now.”

“There’s no night,” an older man said.

“At least, there hasn’t been one yet,” the young man said. “How long have we been here?”

Hanner tried to think. So much had happened, and he had been so busy and gotten so little sleep...

“A day or two,” he said. “I think.”

The others exchanged glances. “That sounds about right,” the older man said.

“I thought it was more,” another man said.

“Time may not pass at the same rate here,” an older woman suggested.

“It doesn’t matter,” the young man said. “Hanner, why are you here? You don’t need somewhere to stay, do you?”

“Vond sent me,” Hanner said. “It wasn’t my idea. I just wanted to get some sleep.”

A woman laughed. “Well, you can sleep here,” she said.

Hanner started to protest, to say that he couldn’t spare the time, that Vond was in a hurry, but then he stopped. Why should he care what Vond wanted? He was in the one place he knew of where Vond was absolutely powerless to harm him, and he could stay here as long as he chose. He had told Vond it might take awhile to evict his guests; why should he rush?

“That sounds wonderful,” he said. “Where should I go?”

This time all of the other smiled, and two or three laughed. “Wherever you want,” the woman said. “Right here on the grass, if you like, or in one of the houses.”

“We don’t think we need to worry much about shelter,” the young man told him. “The sun hasn’t moved, the temperature hasn’t changed, and we haven’t seen a cloud since we got here. The breeze does rise and fall a little, but not enough to matter.”

“Oh,” Hanner said. He started to say something else, but then a familiar voice knocked the words out of his head.

“Hanner!” Rudhira called. She was trotting up the slope from the village.

“Rudhira!” Hanner called back, smiling broadly. “I didn’t know you had come here.”

“I thought it was the best way to stay out of Vond’s path,” Rudhira said. “I had put Pirra in the room across the hall, and I didn’t see any reason not to come here and get warm. It’s lovely here, isn’t it?”

Hanner looked around again, and admitted, “Yes, it is.”

He had designed it to be, of course, when he commissioned the tapestry. He had expected to spend the rest of his life here, and had tried to ensure that it would be as pleasant as possible — though Arvagan had warned him that wizardry had no guarantees.

“We’ve been working on fishing nets,” Rudhira said. “And we’ve been planting seeds from the fruit you sent, and those trees over there — I don’t know what kind of nuts those are, but they taste good and haven’t made anyone sick yet.”

“The water is good?”

“Oh, the water is lovely! Cool and clean. We could use more pitchers, though, if you’re planning to send more supplies.”

Hanner remembered why he was there. He shook his head. “There won’t be any more supplies,” he said. “Vond wants us all out of here.”

That triggered a storm of protests. “What business is it of his?”

“Why does he care?”

“Why should we care what he wants?”

Hanner raised his hands. “Please, please!” he said. “I’ll explain it all. But...but I need to rest a little, first. I was up all night. Let me take a little nap, and then I’ll tell you all about it.”

Rudhira and the basket-makers exchanged glances, and then Rudhira and two of the others hurried to escort Hanner.

“This way,” Rudhira said. “There’s a bed waiting.”

She led him to the village, and into one of the houses, where a pile of old clothes had been made up into a crude bed. Hanner sank down onto it gratefully. He lay back and closed his eyes.

“Are we really going to wait until he wakes up to find out what’s happening?” someone whispered; Hanner barely heard it. The speaker probably thought he was already asleep, Hanner told himself.

“We don’t have to,” someone else replied. “We can go look for ourselves.”

“Hush!” Rudhira said. “Let him sleep!”

Then they left him alone, and Hanner was finally able to drift into deep, peaceful slumber.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Edara of Silk Street crept down the attic stairs as stealthily as she could, but she knew she was no spy or thief, no expert at moving silently. She expected at any moment to find herself facing a guard of some sort, or even worse, Vond himself. She opened the door at the foot of the steps and crept out into the fourth-floor corridor.

No one was there. Sunlight spilled in from the window above the stairs at the southern end of the hall; she was slightly surprised to realize that it was early morning here. She hesitated, then hurried across and peeked in the door of a bedroom on the other side of the hall.

The tapestry was still there, hanging undisturbed and unguarded. She was tempted to go touch it, and pop back into what the inhabitants were calling Hanner’s Refuge, but she steeled her nerve and closed the door again. She took a deep breath, told herself that no one had any reason to hurt her, and started cautiously down the