The Unwelcome Warlock

evicted?”

“I...I just wanted to see what was happening, your Majesty.”

Vond turned and called down to someone below, out of Edara’s line of sight, “That, my friends, is why I want the place cleared out, and one reason I want some guards around here. This woman simply popped out of nowhere right here inside our stronghold, and we didn’t know a thing about it! It’s intolerable.”

“I don’t understand,” Edara said. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on,” Vond said, “is that the lying scoundrel who calls herself the head of the Wizards’ Guild in Ethshar of the Spices, Ithinia of the Isle, tried to trick me into abandoning my magic so that she could continue to play the power behind the throne here. In my own defense I had to make some changes, and that included claiming this house for my own, and removing all those guests Hanner had allowed to clutter up the place. A few have stayed on as my sworn supporters; the rest I sent away. Now, my dear, you have the same choice to make that all the others made — will you swear eternal loyalty to me and to the cause of restoring warlockry to a position of supreme power in Ethshar, or will you be cast out into the street to make your own way?”

Edara met Vond’s eyes for a moment as she considered that. The emperor almost made it sound tempting, but she had no interest in swearing loyalty to anyone. Besides, she wanted to know what was happening in the rest of the city before making any irrevocable decisions. She could probably come back if she decided following Vond was her best option. “I...I guess I’ll just go,” she said.

“Fine!” Vond drew himself up to his full height — or rather more than his full height, actually, since he rose upward into the air of the stairwell. “Go, then!” He pointed toward the door.

Edara went. She wanted to find out what was hanging over Lower Street, and to see where Zallin was going, but most of all, she wanted to get away from this flying madman. Perhaps she could also stop in to talk to this Ithinia of the Isle, whoever she was.

She hurried down the stairs, dodging quickly around Vond’s dangling boots, and then out the front door, across the dooryard and through the gate onto High Street. Then she stopped and looked around.

The gargoyle that had perched on the house across the street was gone; that was odd. The street was neither deserted nor crowded, but everyone in sight seemed to be in a hurry, trotting or running rather than walking. The one coach she saw was moving west at bone-rattling speed.

Lower Street, Vond had said. She rounded the corner onto Coronet Street and jogged quickly down the hill, then around the angle onto Merchant Street, which seemed a little more crowded than usual, and thence to Lower.

Then she stopped dead in her tracks and stared eastward, not believing what she saw.

There was a palace hanging in the sky. The top half of it was golden marble, like the overlord’s palace, shining in the sun; the lower half was rough dark gray stone she did not recognize.

She took a few steps back, out onto Merchant Street, and looked down the hill toward the plaza. The street was still there, and the plaza was still there, crowded with people, but the part of the palace that should have been visible beyond the plaza was gone; there was a gap, and then in the distance a cluster of strange, crooked little buildings that she recognized as the Old City — which should have been hidden behind the overlord’s palace.

She looked at the thing in the sky over Lower Street again, then down Merchant Street, then above Lower Street.

Yes, that was the overlord’s palace up there. It had been ripped up out of the ground, taking thirty or forty feet of stone foundation with it.

Edara had been a warlock; she knew how the magic worked. Since waking up in Aldagmor she had heard plenty of stories about the Great Vond, supposedly the most powerful warlock who ever lived. She knew immediately who and what was holding that thing up. She just didn’t know why. She lowered her gaze, thinking that there might be some indication on the street below.

Much of Lower Street was closed. A line of half a dozen guardsmen in the familiar red kilts and yellow tunics — at least those hadn’t changed in her twenty-five year absence! — stretched across it three blocks east of where she stood, turning aside anyone who tried to enter the portion of the street beneath that hanging horror. They might not know anything beyond their orders, but on the other hand, there was no harm in asking. Edara trotted the three blocks quickly, then waited politely until one of the soldiers was standing quietly, not talking to anyone else.

“Hai,” she said. “What’s going on?” She pointed at the structure blocking out the sky.

“Warlock,” the guard said. “Feuding with a wizard who lives up the street.” He pointed a thumb toward a house on the north side of the street.

“Didn’t the warlocks all lose their magic?”

The guard turned up an empty palm. “Most of them,” he said. “Not this one.”

“What did the wizard do?”

The empty hand came up again. “Don’t know.” He glanced up over his shoulder. “Whatever it was, I wish she hadn’t. I have friends up there.”

“Oh,” Edara said, startled. “Oh. There are people in it?”

The soldier nodded. “Lots of them. They did get most of them down earlier this morning, with flying carpets and the like, but there are still at least a dozen guardsmen, and some other people, too. In fact, the wizard who started all this is up there, trying some spell to keep it from falling if the warlock drops it.”

Well, Edara thought, so much for talking to Ithinia of the Isle. Edara had no way of getting up there; if Ithinia was in the floating palace, then they weren’t going to have any discussions any time soon.

She might be able to find Zallin, though. He had been sent to recruit fighters, and in her day, twenty-five years ago, there had been two parts of the city where she would have gone if she was looking for hired swords. If she wanted simple thugs, men who would do anything for a round of silver, and she didn’t care that some of them wouldn’t be much smarter than the average rat, she would go to Westwark, or maybe a few blocks up into Crookwall.

If she wanted men who knew what to do with a weapon, and who could be trusted to handle something more complicated than a street brawl, she would go to the south side of Camptown, past Superstition Street, and on into Eastwark. That was where one could find retired guardsmen who might be bored of the quiet life and eager to enhance their pensions...

But no, that was what she would do. It wasn’t what Zallin would do. He would want something faster and simpler. Her method would involve asking around, knocking on doors, talking to people — he wouldn’t want to spend that much time and effort on it, not when Vond might be getting impatient. Zallin would go where recruiters always went to find gullible young idiots seeking adventure, or simply people with no resources who were looking for work — Shiphaven Market.

She thanked the guard, then turned and headed west along Lower Street, across Merchant Street into the Old Merchants’ Quarter, but then stopped.

Zallin had spent his adult life as a warlock; he might be more familiar with the notice-boards and recruiting at the Arena, up near the Wizards’ Quarter, than with Shiphaven Market. He was also supposed to find a tailor, and Shiphaven wasn’t the best place for that. Neither was Arena.

Edara realized she didn’t need to find Zallin, in any case. Wherever he went to hire his guardsmen and tailor, he would be bringing them back to the house on High Street. She turned back, and headed back toward Warlock House.

Simply standing in the middle of High Street did not seem wise; she did not want to attract Vond’s attention. Instead she walked up and down, trying to blend in with the normal traffic, but always turning back just before she got out of sight of the iron gate and white door.

The sun crept across the sky, as the one in Hanner’s Refuge had not, and Edara’s feet grew sore. She was tired, hungry, and thirsty, all sensations that were still not entirely familiar after her recently-ended years as a warlock. She wondered whether there was really any point in waiting, but she didn’t know what else to do, or where else to go. She would happily have gone back through the tapestry into the refuge if she could have found a way to get safely into the house and up to the fourth floor, but she could not see how that might be accomplished.