Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Unwelcome Warlock

But it wasn’t necessary. He was able to get everything vital stowed into two bags, a large one he slung over his shoulder, and a small one he carried in his other hand. The rest he shoved into the empty closet, in case he ever had a chance to retrieve it. Half an hour after reaching his decision to leave he was in the front hall, wrapped in his winter coat and with a broad-brimmed hat pulled down to his ears, reaching for the door.

That was when someone knocked, startling him so badly he dropped his bags. He stood frozen, staring at the white-painted wood.

When nothing more happened he glanced into the parlor, then peered into the dining room, and saw no one. He knew most of Hanner’s guests had fled, and Vond’s hirelings were all upstairs, but he was still somewhat startled to see no one else around. Uncertainly, he reached out and opened the door.

A young woman was standing on the front step, and while Zallin knew immediately that he had seen her before, it took a moment to place her. Eventually, though, he realized that this was the whore Vond had brought back from Camptown. She was wearing a long cloak that was entirely appropriate for the weather, but which hid her bright clothing and made identification more difficult. “Yes?” Zallin said.

“Hanner told me to come back for my pay,” she said. “Well, actually, he told me to go find his sister at the overlord’s palace, but I’m not about to swim out to that sandbar and try climbing up the stone. So I’m here, and I want my money.”

“Hanner isn’t here,” Zallin said. “At least, I don’t think he is.”

“Hanner isn’t the one who owes me,” she said. “That skinny warlock who calls himself an emperor is.”

“He’s not here, either,” Zallin began.

“ You are,” she snapped. “And you were with him in Camptown, too. I saw you. You started to talk to me.”

“Yes, I remember,” Zallin said.

“So you can pay me.”

Zallin closed his eyes. He did not need this right now. He wanted to get out of Warlock House and away from High Street before Vond reappeared. He opened his eyes again and said, “ I wasn’t the one who hired you.”

“You work for him.”

“But I don’t -”

She cut him off. “You know what? I don’t care who you are, or what you do. You’re here in the warlock’s house. You can pay me, or you can find someone who’ll pay me, or I can start screaming for the city guard – and in case you hadn’t noticed, there are at least a dozen guardsmen in the street out front. Which will it be?”

“Fine,” Zallin said, reaching for his smaller bag. He had packed up a good bit of the Council’s treasury – not all of it, because he did not want Vond labeling him a thief and finding additional motive to look for him, but more than half, since after all, no one other than himself knew how much money had been there to begin with. It wouldn’t be missed, as long as he left a believable sum. “How much?”

“Five rounds.”

Zallin closed his eyes again, and sighed. He did not bother to doubt her; Vond had almost certainly agreed to her price, no matter how outrageous it was. After all, he didn’t intend to actually earn his money; he would simply take it, since no one could stop him.

“I’m waiting,” the woman said.

“Yes,” Zallin said, opening his bag and digging for a purse. A moment later he counted forty bits into the woman’s waiting hand. He had to stop after twenty, though, so she could transfer the money to a purse of her own, somewhere under that heavy brown cloak; forty was more than she could hold in both palms.

When he had finished he tucked the purse away, and when he looked up again the whore was grinning at him. “Thank you,” she said. “I was beginning to wonder whether I’d ever really get it.”

“Well, you did,” Zallin said, picking up his baggage. “I wouldn’t suggest coming back for another night, though. I’m leaving, and I think Hanner’s already gone, and no one else around here is likely to keep his Imperial Majesty honest.”

“I wasn’t planning to come back,” she said. “Oh, it was quite an experience, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it, but he’s crazy and he’s dangerous.”

Zallin nodded. “Yes, he is.”

“He smashed right through the ceiling when I was here, and hung naked in the air. It was amazing.”

“So I heard.”

She looked at his bags. “You’re leaving? Where are you going?”

Zallin opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again. He frowned. “I don’t really know,” he admitted.

“I know a cheap inn in Eastgate. I can show you.”

“That sounds as good a place as any. Thanks.” He slung the larger bag over his shoulder, and together the two of them marched out the door onto High Street.

As they walked eastward they chatted idly, their breath visible in the chilly air. Zallin finally managed to remember the woman’s name, Leth of Pawnbroker Lane. He had been drunk when he heard it before, but it came back eventually.

“When Vond and I were in Camptown,” Zallin remarked, “most people were avoiding us – with good reason. Why didn’t you?”

“There was money to be made,” she said. She hefted the fat purse under her cloak to emphasize her point. “Throwing people around reduced the competition.”

“Weren’t you worried it would reduce your lifespan, as well?”

She turned up an empty palm. “Not really,” she said. “I knew he wouldn’t kill me.”

“How?”

She gave him a sideways glance, then said, “Do you really want to know?”

Zallin hesitated, but curiosity triumphed. “Yes, I do,” he said.

Leth nodded. “All right, then. About ten years ago, when I was a little girl, I got sick – seriously sick, to the point my mother expected me to die. She hired a wizard named Orzavar the Seer to advise her – in fact, she sold our house on Pawnbroker Lane to pay him, and to pay the healer he sent her to. I hope she thought it was worth it – she said she did, but you know how parents are.”

“Of course,” Zallin lied. He knew his parents wouldn’t have sold their house to pay a magician to help him. “But I don’t see the connection.”

“Well, since she was already giving up everything to pay the seer and the healer, she wanted to be sure it would work, and she asked a few other questions. Orzavar informed her that I was going to die peacefully in my sleep at the age of eighty-one. He swore it, by several gods and by his magic – he wasn’t just trying to comfort her. So I don’t worry about getting killed.”

“Oh,” Zallin said.

“I can still get hurt, of course,” Leth said conversationally. “But Vond didn’t look interested in hurting people just for the sake of hurting them – I’ve known men like that, and he didn’t seem to be one of them. If he did throw me around – well, I knew I’d survive.”

They walked on in silence for a moment as Zallin absorbed this, and then he asked, “What happened to your mother?”

“She was murdered a sixnight later,” Leth said. “With the house gone, we were sleeping in the Hundred-Foot Field, and she didn’t hide what was left of her money well enough. That’s why I’ve been walking the streets in Camptown.”

That matter-of-fact little biography horrified Zallin. He remembered his own mother, who was still alive – or at least, she had been a month ago.

“What about your father?” he asked.

“I have no idea who he is. My mother never said. Well, when I was very little she said he was a sailor by the name of Kelder who was lost at sea, and maybe he really was, but I don’t know.”

“No other family?”

“No other family. What about you?”