Lawrence Watt-Evans: The Unwelcome Warlock

That time it worked.

He stood for a moment, taking in his surroundings and his situation.

He had no magic. Wherever he was, he wasn’t a warlock here; probably nobody would be. All the little things he had done magically he either had to do with his own muscles or not at all.

He was dismayed to realize how many of them there were. He had been using warlockry to stand up, to walk – or rather, to fly; he realized now he hadn’t actually walked in months, even when he told himself he wasn’t flying and tried to stay close to the ground. He had been summoning things to his hand, rather than reaching out to take them. Magic had infiltrated every part of his life. Now that his head was clear, he could remember any number of ways he had used magic – walking, lifting, cooking, cleaning, heating, cooling, playing with his children, even making love to his wife. He had done it all without thinking. Even when he had begun to feel the Call, when his dreams had become nightmares and the whisper in his head had become a constant nagging, and he had tried to stop using warlockry because it made him more susceptible, he had unconsciously continued doing all those little, everyday magics. The power wanted to be used, so he had used it. Only now that he couldn’t use it did he realize he had been doing so. He was standing here on a grassy hillside, and his legs were supporting his entire weight, his skin was unprotected from sun and wind, and it felt strange .

He thought he could get used to it, though. After all, he hadn’t been born a warlock; he had grown to adulthood without any magic. Most people managed just fine without warlockry.

He sniffed the air and caught the scent of the sea, or something very like it. He walked cautiously down toward the cluster of buildings that he could not help thinking of as a village, though he had no idea whether that was really an accurate description.

As he drew near, he decided that they were indeed houses and did indeed comprise a village. They were built of some hard, golden-brown material – stone or brick or dried mud, he couldn’t tell which. There were many small windows and a few arched doorways. Arvagan had said that the builders might not be human, but the proportions looked right for humans; Hanner didn’t see anything particularly odd about the houses.

Beyond the village, the land continued to fall away, and he could see the ocean, or something very like it, spreading out in the distance. A tree-lined stream gurgled its way past the village, which accounted for the splashing he had heard, and the leaves rustled in the gentle breeze.

It was very pleasant, really. Arvagan had said that he couldn’t guarantee anything about this place, that there might be hidden dangers, anything from insidious poisons to rampaging monsters to distorted time, but to Hanner it looked calm and inviting. The stream would presumably provide water, and the land looked fit for growing food; there might be fish in the sea, or even clams to be dug along the shore.

Or if appearances were deceiving, and that somehow proved impossible, if the tapestries continued to work as promised, he could still have food and even water brought in from Ethshar. Unless there were some nasty surprises awaiting him, he had his refuge – a place where warlocks could come to escape the Calling.

He wandered around for what felt like an hour or so, exploring the houses. They were largely unfurnished, as if their intended inhabitants had never arrived, never brought their belongings.

That was fine. That was perfect .

The air was sweet, the sun was warm, and there was no Call. It was everything Hanner had wanted.

In the one house, just as Arvagan had said, was the other tapestry, the one depicting the attic of Warlock House, the mansion that had once belonged to Hanner’s uncle, Lord Faran. That bare, dim room looked dismal compared to the bright sunlit refuge, but Hanner did not hesitate; he knew his wife was waiting for him there. Mavi and the children had been worried about him; this refuge would be a relief for them all, even if none of the others ever set foot in it. Hanner walked up to the tapestry, and put a hand and a foot out to touch it, eager to tell Mavi the good news.

He knew the Calling would return, but he assumed it would take a few seconds to reach its old force. He thought he was ready for it.

Then he was in the attic, back home in Ethshar of the Spices, and he was wrong. There was no delay at all. The Call was instantaneously a deafening, irresistible screaming in his head, and he had had no time to prepare, no chance to brace himself. After an hour of freedom, his resistance was gone, and he could not restore it quickly enough. There was one final instant of clarity, one glimpse of Mavi waiting, a glimpse of her staring at him as he appeared out of thin air, and then there was no room in his mind for any thought but the desperate need to get to Aldagmor as fast as he could, by any method he could. Nothing could be permitted to stand in his way, and with a wave of his hand he shattered the sloping ceiling, splitting the rafters and tearing wood and tile to shreds as he soared out into the sky. He could not spare so much as a second to tell his wife goodbye before flying northward.

He did not hear Mavi call his name, did not hear her burst into tears as he vanished. He did not see Arvagan’s apprentice rush up the attic stairs to her side, to catch her before she collapsed.

By the time the apprentice brought Mavi to Arvagan’s shop, Hanner was thirty leagues from the city. By the time word went out to the Council of Warlocks, Hanner was in Aldagmor. He could not tell them what had happened. He could not tell them that the refuge was a success, and only failed because he had been caught off-guard by the sudden instantaneous return of a Calling he had only barely been able to resist before he stepped through the tapestry. No one knew how very, very close he had been to giving in before he touched the fabric and was transported to that other reality.

All they knew was that Hanner, Chairman of the Council, had stepped through the Transporting Tapestry still able to fight the Call, and upon emerging had instantly flown off to Aldagmor.

There were some who theorized that the Call was somehow stronger on the other side of the tapestry, some who thought the magic of the tapestry itself somehow added to the Call’s power, some who really didn’t care about the details, but the Council as a whole agreed: The Chairman’s attempt at creating a safe haven for high-level warlocks had failed.

The tapestry was rolled up and stored securely away – after all, it was bought and paid for, and belonged jointly to the Council and Hanner’s widow Mavi, and perhaps someday some new spell or divination would allow them to use it safely. A new Chairman was elected.

And the Calling, that inexplicable melange of nightmares and compulsions, continued to snatch away any warlock who grew too powerful.

The cold air rushed past Sensella’s face, drying her eyes and chilling her skin, but was not enough to distract her from her ferocious need to reach Aldagmor – or rather, a specific place in Aldagmor; she knew she was probably somewhere in Aldagmor now, but she still had a league or two to go. Nothing else mattered – not the cold, not the dark, not the family she had left behind. She knew her children and grandchildren would be upset that she was gone, that she had flown off in the middle of the night, but that wasn’t as important as getting to the thing in Aldagmor, to whatever it was that was calling her. Her magic didn’t matter, other than in helping her get there; if it were to suddenly vanish and she survived the fall, she knew she would just get to her feet and walk, or better yet, run, to answer the Call.