The Unwelcome Warlock

me that when you first told me about this place.”

“Didn’t I?” Hanner asked, feigning innocent surprise.

One of the soldiers sucked in his breath at that.

“No, you did not.”

Hanner dropped the pretense. “You didn’t ask.”

“I shouldn’t have had to!”

“Forgive me, your Majesty, but I am not one of your subjects. You stole my house and now you’re stealing the tapestries I spent my fortune on. Why would I help you any more than circumstances force me to?”

“Because you want to live, idiot!” Vond shouted, his voice still thin and weak. “Serve me faithfully and you’ll thrive under my rule, but this sort of pointless resistance could get you killed.”

Hanner did not bother to answer that; he closed his mouth firmly. He suspected that if this conversation had taken place back in Ethshar, he would have been smashed against a wall by now.

“Show me the tapestry,” Vond ordered.

A few minutes later all of them were standing in front of the tapestry, where Tesra and the refugee woman demonstrated several times that it was not working.

“You didn’t change anything in the attic?” Hanner asked.

“No,” Vond said. “It looked just like that when last I saw it.” Then he corrected himself. “Or rather, the last time I saw it by daylight. You’re right — it stopped working when dusk faded.”

“Then it should be fine once the sun rises again,” Hanner said.

“And if it isn’t?”

“Then we’re all trapped here.”

Vond looked at him thoughtfully. “You don’t seem very upset by that idea.”

Hanner turned up an empty hand. “I have been in worse places,” he said. “It’s sunny and warm here, and we have food, water, and shelter.”

“Is that all you want? Don’t you have a family in Ethshar?”

“I do,” Hanner said. “But for years they all thought I was long dead, and accepted it.”

Vond shook his head. “But they know now that you’re alive. No, I think you know another way out. You’re hoping to strand me in here, where I won’t trouble the Wizards’ Guild any further, but you have another way out.”

“No,” Hanner said. “I really don’t.”

The emperor studied Hanner’s face for a moment, then nodded. “Maybe you don’t. But you think there will be another way out eventually, don’t you?” Vond raised his sword and rested the point on Hanner’s chest. “Will it still happen if I kill you?”

The other people in the room all tensed, but none of them spoke, and no other blades were raised.

“Probably not,” Hanner said, trying to keep his voice perfectly steady. “Honestly, your Majesty, I don’t know of another way out, but I do know that there are people in Ethshar who care about me, and as you say, they know I’m alive. When they realize I’m missing, they’ll try to reach me — they’ll hire a magician, most likely a wizard or a theurgist, and they’ll find me, and arrange for a way out. Perhaps they’ll bring another tapestry here, or open a portal. Will anyone do that for you? I rather doubt it. As for these other people, the ones I brought here are here in the first place because no one cares about them, and the men you hired — does anyone know where they are, or even who hired them? Will anyone miss them?” He shook his head. “I’m the only one here who is certain to be missed, when my sisters don’t hear from me.”

Vond straightened up and lowered the sword. “Interesting logic,” he said. “And quite possibly true. Oh, I think there are people who care for me — Zallin and the others who stayed in Warlock House want me to give them back their magic, and I think I pleased Leth — but I concede they aren’t likely to hire a wizard to find me. I told Zallin where I was going, and that if he ever wanted to be a warlock again he would want to make sure I got back safely, but that doesn’t mean he’ll do anything. Even if someone did hire a wizard and the Guild allowed that wizard to try to find me, given that they don’t know my true name, perhaps they couldn’t. So you may be right.”

“Ithinia certainly wouldn’t be in any hurry to get you out of here.”

“Very true,” Vond said. “She swore not to harm me, but I don’t trust her. She may well be conjuring up some assassin this very minute, hoping to kill me in my sleep before I can hoist the palace into the sky again.”

“I doubt an assassin could find you here,” Hanner said.

“You think not?” Vond cocked his head to one side. “You might be right about that, too.” He looked over his shoulder out the open door, at the bright, steady sunlight. “This place could be useful.” He looked back at Hanner. “These tapestries — you bought them?”

Hanner nodded.

“They were made to your specifications?”

“Yes.”

“So I could buy more, couldn’t I?” He snorted, then laughed. “Buy, or steal. I could bring them all here, and be able to appear anywhere in the World just by walking into the right one.”

“Well, not anywhere,” Hanner said. “There are limitations. But I don’t see any reason you couldn’t have several here. I believe the higher ups in the Wizards’ Guild have an arrangement along those lines somewhere.”

“But of course, this all assumes we get back to Ethshar,” Vond said.

“I think we will,” Hanner said. “Once the sun is above the city walls.” He glanced up. “The real sun.”

“If Ithinia hasn’t laid a dozen traps for us,” Vond said. “Or smashed the attic, so there’s nothing to match the image.”

“If that, yes,” Hanner agreed. “But you’re assuming she knows where we are.”

“She’s a wizard,” Vond said. “You have to assume she knows everything she might want to.”

“There is that,” Hanner acknowledged. He looked around at the swordsmen and the remaining refugees. “It must still be hours until dawn. Maybe we should all get some sleep.”

“Maybe,” Vond agreed. He looked at Tesra and the woman who had been testing the tapestry. “I want at least two men awake and watching the tapestry at all times — Gerath, you work out the roster, and whoever isn’t doing that should get some rest.” He smiled a very unpleasant smile. “If our friend Hanner is correct, the tapestry may start working again at dawn — or it may not, in which case we will have to wait until his family arranges to rescue us. Either way, we may find some excitement waiting for us, if and when we get back to Ethshar.”

Gerath nodded, and began giving orders.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Ithinia knelt before the low table where she was making preliminary preparations for Varrin’s Greater Propulsion. She could not complete the spell for another four days — well, three and a fraction — but the early steps could be done at any time, and she wanted them out of the way. She kept her hands moving in the necessary gestures, her eyes focused on the elements of her spell, as she said, “How long has it been?”

“Two or three hours, Guildmaster,” Rothiel replied, standing well back from the table.

They were in a guard-room to one side of the overlord’s grand audience chamber; it was not as centrally located as Ithinia might have hoped, but it did have several large casements that gave a good view and would aid in navigating the palace when the spell was complete.

Right now, the view from those windows showed her the night-lanterns of Crooked Pier and the lights of the Newmarket waterfront. She had thought the spell would be needed to keep the palace from falling when Vond eventually let it go, but it was no longer airborne; instead it stood on a sandbar a hundred yards out from the beach. The spell would still be necessary to set the palace back in its proper place, of course, and at any rate, once she had begun it was not safe to stop until she reached one of the spell’s natural breaks.

“Do we know what happened?” she asked.