“I don’t know, your Majesty.”
“About how many did we get out?”
Kolar had no idea, but he did not think the warlock wanted to hear that, so he made a guess. “Fifty, perhaps?”
“Well, that’s most of them,” Vond said, more to himself than to Kolar. He peered back up into the attic, then glanced across the hall to the room where the tapestry hung. Then he called to the man at the head of the stairs, “Is everyone out of the house?”
“I can’t see anyone from here, your Majesty.”
“Well, ask, stupid!”
The man opened his mouth to say something, then caught himself, turned, and shouted down the stairs, “Are they all out down there?”
Kolar could hear the question being relayed; a moment later the answer came back. “The man at the front door says the last ones are in the dooryard, your Majesty.”
“Good,” Vond said, looking around thoughtfully. He considered for a long moment. Then he turned to Kolar. “You’re coming with me. Don’t be frightened; I’ll keep you safe.”
“Coming where? Your Majesty, I…” Kolar began. Then as his feet left the floor he let his protest trail off; it obviously wasn’t going to do any good. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard.
When he opened them again the wall ahead of him was melting, or dissolving, or doing something that walls don’t normally do; the plaster was flowing like molasses, and the wooden lath beneath was curling like ribbons as a hole appeared and grew.
Then he, and Vond, and the man who had been stationed at the top of the stairs, were flying out through the hole into the twilight sky. They had been on the fourth floor, so they were thirty feet up to begin with, and immediately swooped dizzyingly upward. Kolar gulped, and decided not to look down.
They were flying northeast, he realized, toward the overlord’s palace, where it hung motionless a hundred yards above Lower Street, gleaming orange in the light of the greater moon and blocking out the stars.
“Your Majesty, what are we doing?” the other mercenary asked, shouting to be heard over the wind of their passage.
“We’re putting my toys away,” Vond replied.
Kolar’s eyes widened. Was the warlock going to put the palace back where it belonged? But wouldn’t that leave him open to attack? Kolar didn’t know the entire story, but it was his understanding that the whole point of stealing the palace in the first place was that as long as it hung above the city, no one would dare harm Vond. If he put it back, wouldn’t that provide a perfect opportunity for the wizards and witches to kill him?
But the palace was unmistakably starting to move; it was eerily silent, but Kolar could tell from the way the moonlight shifted that it was moving. He glanced down, trying to orient himself. If the palace was going back where it belonged, it should be heading a little west of due north. Kolar tried to make out the grid of streets below to confirm that it was indeed going that direction.
It wasn’t. It was heading east of north.
“Where are you taking it?” he asked.
“Out to the sandbars off Newmarket,” Vond replied. He hesitated, then added, “You might want to cover your ears.”
Kolar did not need a second warning; he didn’t know just what to expect, but he immediately clamped his hands over his ears, ducking his head down and hunching his shoulders.
“People of Ethshar!” Vond’s voice roared out, so loud that not just his ears, but Kolar’s entire skull seemed to ring. His teeth bit down so tightly they hurt as he tried to shut out the deafening sound. “I am going to be taking a short break, but rest assured, I’m not done. I will return momentarily, and when I do I will restore the palace to its position above the New City. Any attempt to harm me during my nap will be most unfortunate for anyone involved.”
The sound rolled out across the city and the sky, and Kolar squeezed his eyes shut as the echoes died away. His head hurt, and he knew that this headache was going to last for awhile.
When he finally opened his eyes again they were flying over the waterfront somewhere; the water below was black and empty, but white lines of surf gleamed as they moved across that darkness. The city was mostly behind them, though he could see docks below, dark gray against the black water.
The palace hung in the sky ahead of them, and for the first time Kolar noticed that some of its windows were lit. Not as many as usual, certainly; most of it appeared dark and deserted. Still, there were at least half a dozen lamps burning. There were people in there. Kolar had seen the carpets and contraptions ferrying people out earlier, and he had assumed they got everyone out, but evidently that was not the case.
But then the palace was descending, sinking gently down through the night air, and Kolar could see where those white lines of surf were breaking on the elongated ovals of the sandbars of the Newmarket Shoals.
This was beginning to make sense. Vond was going to do something about those people who had not returned from the tapestry world, and he didn’t want to worry about keeping the palace airborne while he did it, so he was setting the palace down here – someplace safe but inconvenient, so that the overlord would be that much less tempted to try assassinating the emperor while the palace was on the ground.
But why was he, Kolar, here? And that other man?
The palace settled heavily onto the sandbar, tilting slightly to the north; Kolar imagined that most of the furniture would be falling over or sliding to the lower side of whatever room it was in. He hoped the damage wouldn’t be too extensive.
Then it was down, and Vond whipped around, dragging the two mercenaries in his wake as he headed back toward Warlock House at breathtaking speed.
“You have your swords?” Vond asked.
Kolar put a hand on the hilt of his fine new weapon. “Right here, your Majesty,” he said.
“I trust you know how to use it?”
Kolar swallowed. “Of course, your Majesty.”
He was lying. He had never wielded a sword in his life; he was a longshoreman, not a soldier. He glanced the other man. “My blade is at your service.”
“Where we’re going, my magic may not work,” Vond explained. “Old warlockry didn’t. My power is different, but perhaps not that different. If I am rendered powerless, cut off from my magic, it will be up to the two of you, and your blades, to defend me, and to enforce my orders. This is why I hired you, to protect me when my magic can’t.”
“Yes, your Majesty,” Kolar said unhappily. He did not like this. He was fairly certain that the warlock intended to go through that tapestry and take Kolar and the other man along as his bodyguards, and Kolar did not want to go exploring a strange world. He was not happy about the possibility that people had stopped appearing in the attic because the magic that brought them there had stopped working; the three of them might wind up stranded in that other place. He was tempted to say something, but the warlock surely must have thought of that, and he knew far more about magic than Kolar did.
“Serve me well tonight, and you’ll each have a round of gold,” Vond added.
Kolar’s mood brightened considerably at that. A round of gold was more money than he had ever seen in one place in his entire life.
Then they were flying back through the hole in the wall of Warlock House, into the lamplit corridor. Behind them the lath and frame were bending themselves back into place, and the plaster was flowing back to heal the wall. Kolar’s boots thumped down onto the floor.
“This way,” the warlock said, beckoning. As Kolar had thought, they were heading for the tapestry. “Your Majesty, do you really think this is wise?” he asked.