“No,” Sterren said, shaking his head and marveling that even now, Vond could not accept what was happening.
“It was an ordinary nightmare,” Vond insisted. “It must have been! That thing in Aldagmor is still out of range. It has to be! I haven’t been using it! I’ve been getting power from Lumeth!”
“No,” Sterren repeated. He was horribly aware that Vond was on the verge of complete panic and could lash out wildly at any time and strike him dead instantly. “No, it almost certainly does come from Aldagmor.”
“It can’t,” Vond insisted.
“Of course it can!” Sterren answered, annoyed at Vond’s stubborn refusal to understand.
“But how?” Vond insisted, “I’m out of range here!”
Sterren shook his head. “Nowhere is really out of range; you know that. When you first came here, before you learned to use the Lumeth Source, you could still draw on Aldagmor. Not much, but a little. Don’t you remember? You couldn’t fly, but you could stop a man’s heart.”
“But that’s apprentice work! Apprentices don’t get the nightmares!”
“You’re no apprentice any more. Don’t you see? You’ve been drawing so much power from Lumeth, you’ve become so powerful, so receptive to warlockry, that the Aldagmor Source can reach you. Receptivity isn’t that selective. After all, your receptivity to Aldagmor was what let you use Lumeth in the first place. They’re the same thing; the more sensitive you are to one, the more sensitive you are to both. The Lumeth Source is closer, so you can draw far more power from it, but you still hear the Aldagmor Source, too.”
“But I cant!”
“You do. You told me so yourself. You couldn’t enter Lumeth of the Towers and you’ve been complaining for days about whisperings and buzzings in your head; didn’t you realize what they were?”
Vond paused, his expression shocked.
“No,” he said at last, “I didn’t. But they... you’re right, I was hearing Aldagmor. I wasn’t listening, since I had Lumeth, but I was hearing it. Why listen for a whisper when you can use a shout?” He focused on Sterren again.
“You knew“ he said accusingly. ”You knew this was coming!"
Sterren did not dare to reply.
“Why didn’t you warn me? I...” Realization dawned. “Gods, you encouraged me!” Vond exclaimed. “You, it was your idea to fold up the edge of the World!” Fury seethed in Vond’s eyes, and Sterren expected to die then.
He didn’t.
“Why didn’t you warn me?” Vond screamed.
“I was going to,” Sterren answered, truthfully. “Really, I was. But then you killed Ildirin and hardly even noticed, and I... I thought you were becoming too dangerous. Besides-” He took a deep breath, and continued, “besides, would you have believed me?”
Vond’s face, though still pale, was calm as he forced himself to consider this question. He sat down on the bench beside Sterren.
“No,” he admitted at last. “No, I wouldn’t have.”
“Besides,” Sterren said, “I had no idea how much longer you had, how much power you would have to use before... before this.”
Vond nodded. “No other warlock ever came close to the power I had,” he said wistfully. Sterren noted his use of the past tense. He had already resigned himself to the situation.
“So,” Vond said, “I’m back where I was when you found me in Shiphaven Market, back in Ethshar, I’ve had my first nightmare, passed the brink. I need to either get farther from Aldagmor, or to stop using my magic and live with the nightmares, or else I’ll hear the Calling and... and do whatever the Calling makes one do.”
Sterren nodded.
“I can’t get any farther away, can I?”
“We’re not at the edge of the World,” Sterren pointed out. “Not quite.”
“But from here to the corner there’s nothing but sand and grass and desert. It’s not worth it. I can’t even build anything to live in; it would use too much power.”
“You could use your hands,” Sterren suggested.
Vond snorted derisively. “I don’t know how,” he said. “You could just stay here, go on as you have, and go out in a blaze of glory. After all, the Calling isn’t death, is it? It might not be so bad.”
“No,” Vond said flatly. “I don’t know what it is, but anything that sends those nightmares... No. I escaped it once, and that just makes it worse now.” He shook himself, and said with sudden resolution, “I’ll give up magic. I don’t need it now; I’m an emperor. I can live as I please without it!”
Sterren nodded. “Of course,” he said.
But he knew Vond could never do it. After using warlockry in such prodigious amounts for months, using it for his whims for years, could Vond really give it up?
Sterren did not believe it for a minute.
CHAPTER 38
Vond walked into the audience chamber, climbed the dais, and settled uneasily onto the borrowed throne. He looked down at Sterren.
“How do I look?” he asked.
“Fine,” Sterren said reassuringly.
“It’s not very comfortable,” the warlock said, shifting slightly and looking down at the throne. “And it doesn’t really go with this room.”
“Phenvel’s bigger than you are and he leaned back more,” Sterren pointed out. “As for the looks, maybe we can drape something over it later.”
Vond nodded. “What did the servants say when you told them to fetch it?”
“I used some of the slaves you bought from Akalla, and they didn’t say anything. It’s not their place to question direct orders.”
The warlock nodded again. “That’s good,” he said, in a distracted way.
After a moment of uncomfortable silence, during which Vond tried to find a more comfortable position and Sterren simply stood and waited, Vond asked, “What do you think they thought at the castle? Did anybody object?”
Sterren shook his head. “I sent half a dozen of my guards along. Nobody objected. They may be wondering about it, but they can’t do anything. You’re the warlock emperor, remember, you’re all-powerful. Nobody knows anything’s changed except the two of us.”
Vond smiled, a twisted and bitter expression. “They know. Half of Semma must have heard my scream.”
“They don’t know,” Sterren insisted. “They don’t know why you screamed. They don’t know anything about warlockry. Nobody in the entire empire knows anything about warlockry except you, me, and maybe a few traders and expatriates from the north.”
“They’ll guess, when they see me sitting in this thing.”
“They won’t.”
Vond shook his head, but stopped arguing. “Should I open the doors, now?” Sterren asked. Vond waved a hand unhappily. “Go ahead,” he said. Sterren marched down the length of the audience hall to the great red doors and rapped once on an enamelled panel.
The doors swung in, propelled by two palace servants apiece, another reminder of Vond’s unhappy condition, since he had always moved them magically before.
In the hallway beyond waited a dozen or so petitioners. These were the ones who had been sent on by the Imperial Council or various servants and officials as being outside the council’s purview, with valid reasons to see the Great Vond himself.
There was no bailiff, usher, or doorkeeper to manage the presentations; Vond had always taken care of that himself, using his magically enhanced voice to direct people. As Sterren looked over the uneasy little knot of people he thought to himself that a great many things would have to change if the empire was to run smoothly.