The Unwelcome Warlock. Lawrence Watt-Evans

were,” Hanner said. “How old are you?”

      “I don’t see —”

      “How old are you?”

      “I don’t see what it has to do with anything, but I’m thirty-one.”

      “Thank you; that’s about what I would have guessed, but one can never be sure with wizards. Then you don’t remember the Night of Madness, but you must have heard about it.”

      “Yes, of course.”

      “Then you know that in that one night, thousands of people went off to Aldagmor, never to be seen again.”

      “Well, yes, but —”

      “And you must have heard that it seemed to strike almost at random.”

      “Yes.”

      “If you choose three or four thousand people at random from the population of the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, how many of them do you think will be magicians?”

      “Oh.” Understanding spread across Rothiel’s face.

      “Now do you see? Most of our magicians were Called on the Night of Madness, snatched away in the middle of the night, without their supplies. A few who became warlocks that night without being Called immediately went on to give up their other magic and live for a time as warlocks, but now that they’ve lost their warlockry, their old magic has returned — though as you might guess, they’re badly out of practice.”

      “I think I see.”

      “We seem to have more witches than one might expect,” Hanner remarked, “but witchcraft and warlockry always seemed to have some similarities, so that’s probably why.”

      “A large part of your group, then, is people who disappeared on the Night of Madness, almost thirty-five years ago?”

      “Yes. I’m sure they were all thought to be long since dead. No one expects to just go home after all this time and pick up where they left off.”

      “Haven’t many of them died of old age?”

      “Oh, didn’t I explain that?” Hanner smiled. “No. The protective spells on the Warlock Stone preserved us all perfectly. We didn’t age a day, whether we were caught there for thirty-four minutes or thirty-four years.”

      “The spell was strong enough to preserve all the warlocks who were ever Called?”

      “This was the source of all warlockry, wizard. It had all the power it would ever need for anything it wanted to do.”

      “Of course. I see. So there are fifteen thousand of you, and most of you disappeared years ago and are now returning unchanged to families that thought you long dead. You understand that this may be…complicated.”

      Hanner glared. “I am not an idiot, Rothiel.”

      “Yes, but this is… This is not what we expected.”

      “It’s not what I expected when I was Called, either, but here we are.”

      Rothiel nodded. “I will speak to Ithinia, and I hope we will be able to assist you soon.”

      “Thank you.”

      “Good night, Hanner, and good luck.”

      With that, the wizard’s workshop suddenly crumbled away, leaving Hanner standing on trampled grass back in Aldagmor, surrounded by sleeping warlocks.

      Then that, too, dissolved, and he was alone in lightless emptiness — clearly, the dream the wizard had sent had ended, but his sleeping mind was not yet ready to let go. He shouted, but there was no one to hear him, and his voice seemed small and faint in the void.

      And then he woke up, his back stiff, a blade of grass tickling one ear. He was cold and damp, lying on cold, damp ground. He was looking at white fabric, though it seemed rather dim. He shivered, then rolled from his side to his back and looked up at a gray sky; clouds had rolled in during the night, and it was not much after dawn. He sat up.

      Sleeping bodies stretched out in every direction, though less so to the south; he had been near the front of the throng. That white fabric was the back of Rudhira’s tunic; she was still wearing the white tunic and green skirt she had worn when she flew off to Aldagmor, all those years ago — clothes she had borrowed from the wardrobe Lord Faran had kept for his mistresses. She had left one green shoe behind on the streets of Ethshar, and somewhere she had lost the other, leaving her feet bare. Her long red hair trailed across the muddy grass.

      Finding her among the crowd in Aldagmor had been a shock for Hanner; despite Sensella’s warnings and his conversation with Rayel, it had not been until he saw Rudhira that the effects of the time-stopping protective spells around the Warlock Stone really hit home. Rudhira was the same lovely young woman she had been when she flew away, just a few days after the Night of Madness; if anything, she was prettier than he had remembered.

      She hadn’t recognized him. He had aged seventeen years, and she, not at all. She had been a few years older than he when they first met in Witch Alley; now she was at least a decade younger.

      She had been a streetwalker before the Night of Madness; then, for a few days, she had been the most powerful warlock in Ethshar of the Spices.

      What would she be now?

      Rothiel had said their situation was complicated, and Hanner was well aware that he was right. Twenty thousand former warlocks were about to start arriving in the towns and villages and cities of the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, and the Baronies of Sardiron, and the other realms of the World. Some of them might have friends and family eager to welcome them back, but most would not. Some would have other trades to pursue now that they could no longer be warlocks, but others would not; someone who had apprenticed to a warlock at age twelve, had studied and practiced nothing but magic, and had earned a living for his or her entire adult life with that magic, did not have a great many career choices open to him. The younger people could still learn new trades, but what was a man of forty or fifty supposed to do? A man of that age could not join the city guard, which was the last resort for a youth who never found an apprenticeship or other job.

      Hanner very much feared that many of his companions here might wind up sleeping in the Hundred-Foot Field, begging for scraps.

      It was possible, though unlikely, that he would wind up doing that. After all, he had never been apprenticed to a trade; before becoming a warlock he had worked for his Uncle Faran, who was long dead. He had inherited some money and property when Lord Faran died, but he had more of less turned the mansion over to the Council of Warlocks, and he might not be able to reclaim it — it was a long-established principle that Called warlocks were legally dead. His money was almost certainly long gone. Even before his Calling, he had spent most of his fortune on magic of one sort or another — especially those blasted Transporting Tapestries.

      He knew now what had happened to him, how his experiment with the tapestries had gone wrong. He had simply been unprepared for the impact of the sudden return of the Calling after the mental silence in that refuge. His mind had had no time to adjust, no chance to restore the barriers he had built up and then let fall.

      He did not know, though, what had become of the tapestry that led to the refuge. Sensella had never heard of it, nor had any of the four or five other people he had spoken to who had been Called from Ethshar of the Spices after his own departure. It ought to be worth something, he thought. Whoever possessed that tapestry controlled access to a miniature world; surely, that was valuable to someone.

      Mavi might have it, he thought. Or Zallin, though it had been Hanner’s property, not the Council’s. Or maybe it had been lost, or destroyed.

      And what would become of Warlock House? The Council no longer had any reason to exist, so perhaps Hanner could reclaim the house, since he had never formally relinquished ownership.

      Besides, he had connections. Surely, Mavi was still alive, and his children, and there was no reason to think they would be poor.