Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Unwelcome Warlock

“Well, thank you for that,” Sterren said. “I suppose that any interference would have involved my assassination.”

“Probably,” Kelder agreed cheerfully.

“But you knew I was a warlock all along?”

“Oh, not all along, but we did figure it out after a year or two.”

“But you didn’t do anything about a warlock ruling the Empire? A magician holding political power?”

“We aren’t the Wizards’ Guild, my lord, and we don’t enforce their rules. We don’t even obey their rules. We have our own. We are much older than the Guild, my lord.”

Sterren stared at the other man.

The only other person he had ever heard speak of the Guild so dismissively had been Vond, and Vond was dead – but the Cult of Demerchan had indeed been around for a long time. Perhaps not as long as this Kelder claimed, but a long time, all the same.

Seeing that Sterren was not going to reply, Kelder continued, “Demerchan failed to preserve Old Ethshar’s unity, my lord, but we have preserved most of its secrets, and we have deliberately kept them out of the hands of the kings and councils of the Small Kingdoms, so that they will not be misused, or turned against other heirs of Old Ethshar. In particular, we have preserved as much as we could of the Holy Kingdom’s magic. The Wizards’ Guild has surpassed us in their own field, and to some extent a witch’s abilities depend on the individual rather than anything we can teach, but in sorcery, science, demonology, and theurgy we are the greatest magicians in the World today. It was the cult that kept warlockry severely limited in the Small Kingdoms, but we had our own warlocks, hidden away, until the Calling ended. We have every sort of magic we could discover, and we use that magic to keep the peace, as much as we can.”

“That can’t be much, then,” Sterren said. “There are always wars being fought in the Small Kingdoms.”

“Small ones, with relatively little bloodshed. We don’t want to interfere too much, or make ourselves obvious, so we do not suppress every little squabble between kings. We do keep them from getting out of hand.”

Sterren could think of several questions and arguments he could make in response to this claim, but none of them seemed very important just now. He was more concerned with his own situation. “You don’t have any other warlocks left?” he asked. “You’re based in the Small Kingdoms – no one else ever learned to use the power in Lumeth?”

Kelder shook his head. “No. We’ve tried. We’ve particularly been watching the warlocks who came back from Aldagmor with Vond, and none of them have managed it. They just get headaches; they never make the transition Vond did. We’ve tried to help them, but we couldn’t make it happen. Vond must have been a fluke, a freak of nature, one of a kind. We’ve given up trying to duplicate his experience; there’s no point in torturing those poor people. Apparently the headaches are agonizing.”

“They did appear to be painful,” Sterren said.

“And useless.” He shook his head. “No, we haven’t found another Vond, another person who could spontaneously attune himself to the Lumeth source. And Vond didn’t create any others. You’re the only warlock left.”

Sterren nodded. “So I’m the only one. So you want to control the remaining warlock, to ensure I don’t start any wars or go sending palaces flying?”

“Oh, we aren’t worried about you starting any wars or smashing any cities,” Kelder said with a wave. “We watched you administer Vond’s empire for fifteen years; we know you aren’t going to do anything stupid or destructive. No, we want to protect you, to preserve the secret of warlockry. You can live almost anywhere in the Small Kingdoms you please, and do what you want, so long as you allow us to keep watch over you, and permit us to study your abilities, so that we can ensure that you don’t do anything that would drastically impair our own activities. Perhaps, in time, you might take an apprentice, and should that happen, we would want to be closely involved in selecting a trustworthy candidate.”

“That’s all?” Sterren waved a hand. “You said you wanted me to be an acolyte; I won’t need to wear a robe and live under guard in a temple somewhere?”

“No robes or temples. Unless you want them. And your guards will stay out of sight and let you go wherever you want.”

“But I’ll have guards?”

“I told you, we want to protect you.”

“From what?”

“From the Wizards’ Guild.”

Sterren blinked. “What?”

“Hadn’t you figured that out? The Guild doesn’t want anyone using the magic of the towers, for anything. They’re afraid it might interfere with the towers’ actual purpose.”

That did indeed fit with what Sterren knew of the Guild’s edicts and actions, but he asked, “ What purpose?”

“Perhaps I’ll explain that later. For now, though, I’ll just point out that you, my lord, are the only person in the World who can use the magic of the towers. The Cult of Demerchan believes that sooner or later, the Guild will decide to remove that potential problem, and the secret will be lost forever. We want to ensure that doesn’t happen. We preserve secrets, we don’t allow them to be destroyed. Which is why I’m here, offering you a position as a ward of the cult. We’ll conceal you – and your family, of course – from the Guild. We’re very good at that; we’ve been hiding things from them for centuries.”

Sterren looked at Kelder, then back over his shoulder at the crowded streets of Shiphaven, then up at the palace hanging in mid-air – a palace no longer supported by Vond’s warlockry, but by a wizard’s spell.

“ Anywhere in the Small Kingdoms?”

“Almost.”

“My family will accompany me?”

“If you choose, of course.”

“Will you tell them who you are?”

“A convenient fiction can be arranged, if you would prefer not to acknowledge accepting a position among assassins.”

“Is this a paying position?”

“Of course, my lord! And in addition to a generous allowance, when you complete your acolyte’s training you will have access to the cult’s magic. All of it.”

That was a fascinating detail, and Sterren thought it very interesting that Kelder had left it until last. “I’ll want to discuss it with my wife,” he said, “but I think we have a deal.”

Kelder smiled, and held out a hand. Sterren hesitated only briefly before shaking it.

Two months later, when certain wizards decided that the World would be better off without any functioning warlocks, no matter how feeble those warlocks might be, they could find no trace of Lord Sterren, former Regent of the Vondish Empire. Divinations failed to locate him, or determine what had become of him. It was eventually concluded that Vond must have killed him at some point before the emperor’s own death; several witnesses attested to Vond’s anger at his missing aide.

And that, so far as the Wizards’ Guild was concerned, was the end of warlockry, once and for all.

In the end, it proved surprisingly easy for the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, the Baronies of Sardiron, and the Small Kingdoms to absorb tens of thousands of former warlocks. Many of the Called returned to trades and positions they had held before the Night of Madness; others became farmers, or joined the overlords’ guards, or found other employment that did not require formal apprenticeship. The significant financial assets of the Council of Warlocks in all the various cities were devoted to assisting former warlocks, Called or not, in establishing new businesses; many became locksmiths, tinkers, or artisans of one sort or another, applying the knowledge of materials and structures that they had acquired as warlocks.