“Why isn’t he going to be around very long?” Lady Kalira asked, staring at him.
“I can’t tell you that,” Sterren replied uncomfortably.
“You said the same thing months ago, and he’s still here,” she pointed out.
Sterren shrugged again. “So far, yes,” he said.
“And you still say he won’t be for long?”
“He can’t be,” Sterren insisted.
“Why not?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Sterren said again.
Lady Kalira considered this, then asked, “Can you tell me how long he’ll be around?”
“No. Maybe a month, maybe a year or two. I don’t think he can possibly last five years.”
“Did you hire an assassin, or something?” she asked curiously. “The cult of Demerchan, perhaps?”
“No,” Sterren said. “Why would I do something stupid like that? He isn’t doing me any harm. In fact, he isn’t doing much of anybody else any harm, either. Look at the peasants out there, they’re doing just fine! Nobody’s complaining except the deposed nobles, and even you aren’t really suffering much! And here I am, on top of it all, offering you a chance to get back into running the government!”
Lady Kalira studied him closely and then shook her head. “I don’t understand you, Sterren,” she said, “I don’t understand you at all.”
“I don’t care if you understand me or not; I just want your help in putting together this council. I thought seven members would be about right, no ties in the voting that way. And I don’t want it to be hereditary, exactly, since we can’t afford to have any infants or incompetents on it; but perhaps members could have the right to appoint their heirs. I don’t want any of the deposed kings on it, either, it wouldn’t look right unless we included all of them, and I hope that you, as a Semman, will see why I don’t want that.”
Lady Kalira smiled involuntarily at this reference to her former sovereign. Sterren took this as encouragement.
“I suppose princes or princesses might be all right, but I’ll leave that up to you,” he continued. “I don’t know much about any of the people around here; I never really got to know most of them. I’d like you to choose the people you think I really need to have, to start. You’re welcome to take a seat on the Council yourself, if you like, and I thought maybe the steward, Algarven, would be a good choice, but I’ll defer to your judgment.” He hesitated, then said, “I think we probably don’t want all seven to be Semman. In fact, I think a good mix of nationalities would be wise, but on the other hand, Semma is the capital province, so at least one or two... What do you think?”
“I think,” Lady Kalira said slowly, “that I need to know more about the duties of this proposed council.”
Sterren smiled and said, “What would you suggest? Vond has claimed building and conquest for himself and left everything else to me. I prefer to leave it to a council. What would you recommend?”
“You’re really serious about this?”
“Oh, yes.”
She sighed.
By the time Vond returned from the successful subjugation of Hluroth, they had selected four of the seven councillors and were discussing meeting schedules.
CHAPTER 35
It was the ninth of Harvest, in the Year of Human Speech 5221. The Empire of Vond extended from the deserts in the east to the ocean in the west and from the edge of the World in the south to the borders of Lumeth of the Towers in the north.
Vond had turned back before attacking Lumeth and had returned to his citadel trembling.
“I heard the whisper there, even over the power I draw on,” he told Sterren. “I’d forgotten what it was like. Foul, dark muttering in my mind, awful!” He took a deep breath, then released it slowly.
“I almost think I can still hear it,” he said, “but I know it’s just my mind playing tricks on me.”
Sterren hesitated, then said nothing.
“Well,” Vond went on, “I know where my limits are now, at any rate. I don’t dare ever venture past the borders of Lumeth or Kalithon or Shassalla, but here on the south of them, I’m all-powerful.”
Sterren did not argue with Vond’s claim. “It’s too bad,” he remarked instead. “I was curious about what would happen if you got really close to the towers themselves. Aren’t they the source of your power?”
Vond nodded. “I was curious, too, but I won’t risk finding out. It’s too bad; I’d have preferred to have control over the towers.”
That had been sixnights before, early in the month of Longdays, and that unexpected defeat had been followed by more than half a dozen quick victories over the tiny port nations of the South Coast west of Akalla, victories that had extended Vond’s empire as far as it could safely go. Now, on the ninth of Harvest, Sterren stood on a balcony and looked out across the countryside.
The land was a rich green from horizon to horizon, punctuated only by roads and buildings and the bright colors of flowers; thanks to Vond’s control of the weather and reworking of the soil there were no barren spots, nowhere that the earth failed to yield generously.
Straight, smooth roads paved with stone stretched out from the plaza below the citadel, leading directly to each of the towns and castles of the empire.
The village that surrounded Semma Castle still stood, but was equalled in size and far outdone in splendor by the town growing up around Vond’s palace, a town built of white and gold marble, roofed in red tile. Small fountains babbled in each corner of the plaza and at several intersections, providing drinking water for anyone who wanted it, and a much larger ornamental fountain sprayed upward at the center of the plaza. Smoke and intriguing odors rose from a dozen forges and ovens.
The two villages were growing toward each other across the intervening valley, and it seemed likely that in time they would merge into a single entity. In time, Sterren thought, this might become a real city.
Semma Castle itself still stood, but its population had dropped drastically. Over the months, as the royal treasury and the castle stores gave out, the nobility had drifted away, fleeing the empire or, in a few cases, finding honest work. The royal family itself was still sticking it out, but most of the others had left.
The same thing, Sterren knew, had happened in all the former capitals, the castles and strongholds that had once ruled Ophkar, Ksinallion, Skaia, Thanoria, Hluroth, Akalla of the Diamond, Zhulura, Ghelua, Ansuon, Furnara, Kalshar, Quonshar, Dherimin, Karminora, Alboa,and Hend.
So far, Vond had definitely been good for the Small Kingdoms. He had dispossessed a few hundred nobles, but he had enriched thousands of peasants. He had killed a few dozen people in his conquests, but he had probably saved at least as many from starvation.
And he was doomed.
Sterren still found it hard to believe that Vond did not realize he was doomed. It was really fairly obvious. After all, all warlocks were doomed. Just finding a new power source would not change that. Sterren thought Vond had been given enough hints when he established the northern borders of his empire, but still the warlock did not see it.
It was not just that he was unwilling to admit it, either. If that were it, he would have cut back on his use of magic, but he hadn’t. He continued to lay roads, erect buildings, manipulate the weather, and at times to light the night sky in sheer celebration of his might.
Sterren had refrained from commenting, but after all these months, he was finally convinced that Vond deserved better. He deserved a warning, at the very least, a warning only Sterren could provide.