"I think you should go back and ask. I'd be interested in knowing just how quickly Annis disappeared after you ran out of there, too."
"I still can't believe she told me they were going to assassinate you!"
"Oh, they think everyone in Ethshar is a cold-hearted mercenary. I'm almost surprised she didn't try to hire you to kill me."
Emmis's mouth opened, then closed again.
"Really, people in the Small Kingdoms have no idea how a place like Ethshar can exist," Lar said. "It's too big for them to comprehend – the stories say there are a million people in Ethshar of the Spices alone! I don't think there's a one of the Small Kingdoms with more than thirty thousand people in it; the Empire of Vond might have a quarter of a million, at most. And there's all the magic here, and three overlords instead of a king or council…"
"People mind their own business," Emmis said. "It all works out."
"Yes, exactly! People mind their own business, so Annis thought you wouldn't care about me. I'm not one of your countrymen."
"But you're my business," Emmis said. "You pay me. You live here."
"But I have no family here, no connections. You haven't sworn fealty to me, we don't serve the same king."
Emmis stared at him, baffled. "So what?"
"You see? We think differently in the Small Kingdoms!"
"But you said she thought I wouldn't mind because I'm Ethsharitic!"
"Yes. She doesn't understand Ethshar. She sees that you people here don't have the family ties and hereditary positions and binding oaths that connect people in the Small Kingdoms, so she thinks you don't have any connections. I know better – you have your neighbors and your friends and your family and the people you do business with, masters and journeymen and apprentices are all linked, there are the guilds and districts, and when all is said and done you're all Ethsharites together. You have far more connections than we do; they just aren't as strong or as obvious, but they're strong enough. That guardsman we brought here last night – he came with us just because you asked. You aren't a nobleman, or any of his kin, or a member of the guard yourself, you're just an Ethsharite, and that was enough."
"Well, yes, of course," Emmis said. "That's their job, to guard the city and keep the peace."
"In Ashthasa, where Annis is from, a soldier's job is to do as he's told by the prince and his officers," Lar explained. "Helping out an ordinary citizen isn't something he does without orders."
"Barbarians," Emmis muttered under his breath.
Lar heard him, and smiled.
"They think you are barbarians, with your messy, disorganized way of doing things and your lack of a proper hereditary hierarchy."
"'They'? Not 'we'?"
"Oh, I know better than that. I might have never set foot in Ethshar a sixnight ago, but I'm not stupid. I've talked to Lord Sterren, and other travelers, and I know no place could be as big and rich and powerful as the Hegemony if it was really disorganized and barbaric."
"But this isn't obvious to everyone?"
"No, it isn't. You'd be surprised."
"Barbarians," Emmis said again.
"Different," Lar said. "And you should go back to the inn and see whether anyone can tell you anything about Annis. Maybe you can find out whether there are any more assassins on their way, or where she found the two you met last night."
"Why does it matter where she found them?"
"It's a useful thing to know where one can hire assassins."
Emmis didn't like that; the clear implication was that Lar might want to hire a few himself. "Who were you thinking of assassinating?" he asked.
"No one," Lar replied cheerfully. "I just like to know what's possible."
"I don't work for people who hire assassins."
"I'm pleased to hear that."
Emmis glared at his employer. Lar finished his tea.
"I'll order furniture," Emmis said.
Lar shook his head. "Visit the inn. Seriously. You might learn something useful. And if your belongings are still there, you'll save yourself a great deal of effort and money."
"Would they still be there in the Small Kingdoms?"
"They might be, they might not. It would depend on the inn. Try to be back by early afternoon, to take my papers to the Palace."
"I can do that," Emmis acknowledged. He started to rise.
"And while you're doing that, I can go back to the Wizards' Quarter and try to find a good theurgist."
"About the door shrine?"
"That, too."
"About your mysterious hum."
"Yes."
"Someday I'd like to know what that's about."
"So would I – but I know what you mean. Eventually I may tell you."
"But not today? Not now?"
Lar studied him thoughtfully for a moment, then said, "All right."
Emmis sat down again. "You will?"
"I will. It may help you know what to ask at the inn."
"I'm listening."
"You understand that if you tell anyone, I will have you killed? And I won't waste time with street thugs; I'll hire a demonologist."
Emmis hesitated. "You will?"
"Yes. If a warlock, any warlock, finds out what the Empire is worried about, there will be deaths, and yours will be one of them."
Emmis considered that.
It wasn't fair, really – making it clear just how important and dangerous this was made it irresistible. His curiosity was going to drive him mad if he didn't ask.
He would just need to be very, very good about keeping his own mouth shut.
"Go on," he said.
Lar sighed, and began.
"Four years ago," he said, "Sterren, Ninth Warlord of Semma, came to Ethshar and hired some magicians to help defend Semma against her neighbors, Ophkar and Ksinallion. King Phenvel of Semma was an idiot, and had managed to antagonize both his bigger, more powerful neighbors at a time when Semma's own army was in terrible shape, and Sterren thought the only way he could survive the coming war was by breaking the tradition against using magic."
"All right," Emmis said. So far this didn't sound like any great secret.
"Well, as you might guess, most of Ethshar's magicians weren't interested in going to fight a war at the far end of the Small Kingdoms, but he found a few, and one of them was a warlock named Vond, who had started to hear the Calling and was desperate to get farther away from Aldagmor."
Emmis nodded.
"Semma was so far from Aldagmor that at first Vond wasn't much use. In fact, he was stricken with headaches. He said they were caused by a buzz, or hum, that he heard constantly, that never went away."
That seemed mildly odd, but not like any great dangerous secret. "So you want to find out why he had headaches?"
"No, no, no!" Lar waved that absurd notion aside. "You know something about warlocks, yes?"
"A little."
"You know that their power comes from a sort of voice they hear in their heads?"
Emmis frowned. "Well, not exactly a voice…"
"No, not exactly a voice. Vond called it a whisper, and said that the Calling began when you started to understand what it was saying."
"Really? I hadn't heard it that way."
"That's what Lord Sterren told me," Lar said, turning up a palm. "That there was this sort of whispering, muttering voice, or collection of voices, that warlocks drew their power from, and when they drew too much power, the whisper began to gain power over them."
"It could be," Emmis admitted. "But it isn't really a voice. There are images, aren't there?"
"I'm no warlock, but I think so, yes. Still, it's like a voice, sort of."
"Magic," Emmis said, with a wave. "It doesn't have to make sense. So it's a whispering voice that makes images, and that they draw power from. All right."