The thing had called for help, and because it was not from the World, not from this entire universe, it had needed to call so very loudly that its call resonated in certain human minds. Some of those humans had immediately obeyed, their will overwhelmed by the demand that whoever heard the Call must come and help; others had been able to take the sheer power of the Call and shape it with their own will, using it to perform magic.
But the more they had used that power, the more they had become attuned to it, until at last they received the message and had to obey.
The message wasn’t meant for humans, though, and humans could do nothing to help the trapped thing. Instead, they ran into the defenses it had set up to protect itself while it waited. The thing had not wanted to stay awake down there, trapped, frightened, and alone, until rescue came; it had cast a protective spell, put itself into a timeless, dreamless sleep, and anything that came too close to it was trapped in the same spell, frozen into unconsciousness and immobility.
Now help had finally come, the help it had been calling for all along. The protective spell was broken, and the signal the trapped creature had been sending had stopped.
What’s more, it was no longer trapped; its rescuer had pulled it free, scattering the warlocks that had covered it in all directions. As Hanner watched, the thing that had been the source of all warlockry was pulled up to join its rescuer, and then both of them rose, ascending and accelerating, until they dwindled amid the stars.
Behind them, strewn across this valley in southeastern Aldagmor, they left thousands of people who had once been warlocks.
Hanner watched the two monstrous things vanish, then realized he was kneeling on somebody. His first instinctive response was to try to fly, to get off whoever it was, but of course he couldn’t – the Call had ended, and the source of warlockry was gone.
The warlocks remained, though, and Hanner could hear them calling, groaning, and crying on all sides. He turned, and tried to see where he was, where the shortest route to the ground might be.
“This way!” someone called – a woman, not a voice he recognized. “There’s room over here!”
Hanner scrambled in the direction of the voice, mumbling, “Excuse me, I’m sorry, please, I’m sorry,” as he clambered over the bodies of his fallen comrades, many of whom were now trying to free themselves, as well.
So far every body he had put a hand or foot or knee on had felt warm and alive, but Hanner was beginning to realize that some people must have died, must have dashed their brains out or broken their necks when they hit the ground, or been smothered or crushed by the people on top of them. There were hundreds of people here; he couldn’t tell how many, really, but from what he saw and heard it had to be at least hundreds.
There might be more deaths to come, as well. As he moved out of the press of bodies he could feel the night air, and it was cold, cold enough, Hanner thought, for unprotected people to die of exposure.
They were somewhere in Aldagmor, in a valley in the mountains of Sardiron; how cold did it get here? What time of year was it? He had been Called in early summer, and this was definitely not early summer. He looked up, but all he could tell from that was that it was night. The greater moon was a half-circle in the western sky, but other than providing a little light that didn’t help.
He couldn’t really see much of anything in the dimness; his eyes had not yet adjusted after the glowing thing’s departure. He was crawling on all fours, finding his way by feel more than by sight, and his left hand finally came down not on cloth or flesh, but on cold, damp grass – not the soft grass of a lawn, but the rough, scratchy grass of the wilderness. He pulled himself onto it, then got to his feet and looked around.
He was surrounded by shadowy forms – people were standing, or kneeling, or crawling on all sides. He wished he could hold up his hand and make light, as he had so often in the past, but his magic was gone. It had vanished with the Calling, and the source had flown away, gone forever. The World had once again changed suddenly, without warning, just as it had on the Night of Madness, when warlockry had first come into being, and just as it had then, the change had brought chaos.
Someone needed to take charge here. If no one brought some order out of this chaos, more people would die needlessly.
“Hai!” he shouted. “I am Hanner, Chairman of the Council of Warlocks! If you’re unhurt, please get to clear ground and stand up, and then help those who aren’t so fortunate!” He glanced around. “Does anyone have a tinderbox, by any chance, or some other way to make a light?”
This was greeted by a chorus of questions. “Hanner?”
“Who?”
“Lord Hanner?”
Hanner grimaced; at least some of them recognized his name.
Someone behind him, a woman, shouted, “Listen to him! If you can give us light, do it! If you can’t, help spread everyone out – there are still people in danger of being crushed!” Hanner thought it was the same woman who had called out a few moments earlier directing people. He looked about, trying to spot her, and at the same time he tried to direct people away from the central pit, out to safer, more open areas.
“This way!” he called.
Then, at last, a light flared up. For an instant Hanner wondered why it had taken so long, but then he realized – these were warlocks. Powerful warlocks, strong enough to be Called. Up until a few minutes ago, they hadn’t needed flint and steel to make fire; they had magic that could set an entire house ablaze in an instant.
That realization left him wondering why anyone did have a tinderbox; he peered toward the light.
The man holding a torch was no one Hanner recognized; he was not dressed in traditional warlock black, but in the yellow tunic and red kilt of a guardsman. Hanner briefly wondered whether the Hegemony had sent guardsmen to Aldagmor, but then dismissed the idea – Aldagmor was one of the Baronies of Sardiron, outside the Hegemony entirely, and any guards sent here who got this close would have been Called.
But there was one obvious explanation – this man must have been Called on the Night of Madness, seventeen years ago!
But…was it seventeen years? Or was it more? Hanner knew that he had been Called in Longdays of 5219, but he didn’t know how long he had been trapped by that protective spell. Certainly, not all of these people had arrived in a few sixnights, and Hanner had not been on the outside of the great mass of trapped warlocks. He might have been there for a year or more!
That soldier had probably been here since 5202. No other explanation made sense.
“You!” Hanner called. “Bring that light over here!”
The guardsman looked uncertain, but he came, holding the torch high. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Who are you?”
Calling himself Chairman of the Council probably wouldn’t mean anything to this man; if Hanner was right, he had been in Aldagmor since before the Council was created. Still, Hanner thought he knew a name the man would recognize and respect. “I’m Lord Faran’s nephew,” he said. “I’ll explain the rest later – I’m sure there are a lot of people here who don’t understand. For now, we just need to make sure everyone’s safe.”
“Lord Faran? From Ethshar of the Spices?”
That caught Hanner off-guard. “Yes, from Ethshar of the Spices,” he said. “Where are you from?”
“Ethshar of the Rocks.”
“Ah. Well, we’re in Aldagmor, in the Baronies of Sardiron, right now, so I don’t think it matters which of the three Ethshars we’re from. Here, see if you can get more torches lit without setting the grass on fire – it’s cold and dark, and some of these people may be in trouble. We need light, and we can probably use the heat, too.”