This whole discussion about Vond wanting to hire himself a small private army was interesting, but Edara could not see what it had to do with Hanner the Generous turning up in the Refuge in an advanced state of exhaustion, or with the absence of anyone in the upper stories of Warlock House.
“Why can’t we do it?” the third voice asked.
“Do what?” Zallin said.
“Why can’t we be your guards?”
“Because you were warlocks,” Vond said. “What do you know about using a sword or a spear?”
No one spoke for a moment, then Vond clapped his hands and said, “Well, then! Zallin, go find some recruits – men who do know how to use swords – and fetch them back here. I’ll want a couple of dozen, at the very least. As for the rest of you, you’ll be my staff. I’ll need a purser, and at least one secretary, and an envoy – maybe several envoys. Why don’t you think it over? Discuss among yourselves, and when I come back down you can tell me who’s chosen which role.”
“Where are you going?” the fourth voice asked.
“Upstairs,” Vond said. “I want to change my clothes – ah, Zallin, you might also see about finding a tailor or two, while you’re at it! My wardrobe here is hopelessly inadequate.”
“Yes, your Majesty,” Zallin said sullenly.
“Off with you, then!”
Then Edara heard footsteps, and a moment later the front door slammed. She leaned over a little further, to peer down into the entryway, and found herself looking the Great Vond in the eye. She froze.
“Hai,” the warlock said. “Who are you?”
Edara’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. She closed it again.
“I won’t hurt you,” Vond said gently. “You’re a former warlock, aren’t you? I can see you are.”
“Yes, my lord,” she said, drawing back over the railing.
“It’s ‘your Majesty,’” Vond said. “Where did you come from? I thought I’d gone through the whole house.”
Edara tried to think of some clever answer, some foolproof lie, but nothing came, and as Vond’s eyes began to harden at how long she was taking to answer, she lost her nerve and blurted out the truth.
“I was in Hanner’s Refuge, your Majesty!”
“Hanner’s…you mean that magical tapestry thing?”
“Yes, my lo…your Majesty.”
“And he chased you out, as I ordered?” Vond looked past her. “Where are the others?”
“No, he…I came back on my own, your Majesty. No one chased me out.”
“Hanner didn’t tell you I wanted everyone out of there?”
“No, your Majesty. I haven’t seen Hanner since I touched the tapestry.” She carefully didn’t specify which tapestry.
“But I saw him step into it!”
“I…well, time is different in the other world, your Majesty. I didn’t see him.”
“Time is…Is it?” Vond’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Yes, your Majesty. I was quite surprised to see that it was morning here; it was mid-afternoon in the Refuge.” She didn’t mention that it was always mid-afternoon there, if the term had any meaning, and if the direction she thought of as “west” was really west, and not east or south.
“How interesting! Why did you emerge, then, if Hanner had not yet informed you that I wanted you all evicted?”
“I…I just wanted to see what was happening, your Majesty.”
Vond turned and called down to someone below, out of Edara’s line of sight, “That, my friends, is why I want the place cleared out, and one reason I want some guards around here. This woman simply popped out of nowhere right here inside our stronghold, and we didn’t know a thing about it! It’s intolerable.”
“I don’t understand,” Edara said. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on,” Vond said, “is that the lying scoundrel who calls herself the head of the Wizards’ Guild in Ethshar of the Spices, Ithinia of the Isle, tried to trick me into abandoning my magic so that she could continue to play the power behind the throne here. In my own defense I had to make some changes, and that included claiming this house for my own, and removing all those guests Hanner had allowed to clutter up the place. A few have stayed on as my sworn supporters; the rest I sent away. Now, my dear, you have the same choice to make that all the others made – will you swear eternal loyalty to me and to the cause of restoring warlockry to a position of supreme power in Ethshar, or will you be cast out into the street to make your own way?”
Edara met Vond’s eyes for a moment as she considered that. The emperor almost made it sound tempting, but she had no interest in swearing loyalty to anyone. Besides, she wanted to know what was happening in the rest of the city before making any irrevocable decisions. She could probably come back if she decided following Vond was her best option. “I…I guess I’ll just go,” she said.
“Fine!” Vond drew himself up to his full height – or rather more than his full height, actually, since he rose upward into the air of the stairwell. “Go, then!” He pointed toward the door.
Edara went. She wanted to find out what was hanging over Lower Street, and to see where Zallin was going, but most of all, she wanted to get away from this flying madman. Perhaps she could also stop in to talk to this Ithinia of the Isle, whoever she was.
She hurried down the stairs, dodging quickly around Vond’s dangling boots, and then out the front door, across the dooryard and through the gate onto High Street. Then she stopped and looked around.
The gargoyle that had perched on the house across the street was gone; that was odd. The street was neither deserted nor crowded, but everyone in sight seemed to be in a hurry, trotting or running rather than walking. The one coach she saw was moving west at bone-rattling speed.
Lower Street, Vond had said. She rounded the corner onto Coronet Street and jogged quickly down the hill, then around the angle onto Merchant Street, which seemed a little more crowded than usual, and thence to Lower.
Then she stopped dead in her tracks and stared eastward, not believing what she saw.
There was a palace hanging in the sky. The top half of it was golden marble, like the overlord’s palace, shining in the sun; the lower half was rough dark gray stone she did not recognize.
She took a few steps back, out onto Merchant Street, and looked down the hill toward the plaza. The street was still there, and the plaza was still there, crowded with people, but the part of the palace that should have been visible beyond the plaza was gone; there was a gap, and then in the distance a cluster of strange, crooked little buildings that she recognized as the Old City – which should have been hidden behind the overlord’s palace.
She looked at the thing in the sky over Lower Street again, then down Merchant Street, then above Lower Street.
Yes, that was the overlord’s palace up there. It had been ripped up out of the ground, taking thirty or forty feet of stone foundation with it.
Edara had been a warlock; she knew how the magic worked. Since waking up in Aldagmor she had heard plenty of stories about the Great Vond, supposedly the most powerful warlock who ever lived. She knew immediately who and what was holding that thing up. She just didn’t know why. She lowered her gaze, thinking that there might be some indication on the street below.
Much of Lower Street was closed. A line of half a dozen guardsmen in the familiar red kilts and yellow tunics – at least those hadn’t changed in her twenty-five year absence! – stretched across it three blocks east of where she stood, turning aside anyone who tried to enter the portion of the street beneath that hanging horror. They might not know anything beyond their orders, but on the other hand, there was no harm in asking. Edara trotted the three blocks quickly, then waited politely until one of the soldiers was standing quietly, not talking to anyone else.