Night of Madness loe-7

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “You’re guessing,” Faran said.

  “Yes, Iam guessing,” Hanner admitted. “But do you want to risk it?”

  Faran started to say something, then stopped. He turned slowly to look at the doors.

  They were still closed.

  He turned to look at Varrin, and found Varrin standing motionless, staring straight ahead-straight north.

  “Varrin!” Faran barked. “The doors!”

  “I’ll do it,” Kirsha said, and the doors sprang open.

  Varrin was still staring blankly ahead; Hanner grabbed his sleeve. “Varrin,” he said, “listen to me!”

  “It’s calling,” Varrin said without looking at Hanner.

  Hanner threw an angry glance at Faran, then turned his attention back to Varrin. “Varrin,listen! Turn away! And don’t use any more magic, no matter what you do. Don’t listen to it, listen tome!”

  Varrin took a step forward, then stopped when Hanner’s pull on his sleeve held him back. He paused, blinked, then looked at Hanner.

  His eyes were haunted, almost glazed.

  “Varrin, come on,” Faran said. “We need to get to the audience chamber and talk to Azrad, get him to call off his war against warlocks. Then we can see whether a healer can do something about these dreams.”

  “A healer?” Hanner turned to stare at his uncle, but Faran paid no attention; he was waving his arm in a beckoning gesture.

  “Come inside, all of you!” he called. Then he turned to Hanner. “If Varrin’s inside he can’t fly off the way Rudhira did, can he?”

  “I hope not,” Hanner said, unconvinced, as he followed Faran into the Palace.

  What sort of a healer did his uncle have in mind? He knew that Alladia had said the gods wouldn’t heal warlocks, and Sheila had said witches couldn’t touch the part of a warlock’s brain that was presumably where the nightmares originated. Faran wasn’t thinking clearly, Hanner was sure of it; he was so caught up in the anger and exhilaration of using his magic to confront Azrad that he almost wasn’t thinking at all.

  Hanner wished he could think of the right thing to say, the words that would dissuade his uncle from a course Hanner was sure would end badly-but the words weren’t there.

  In the hallway beyond the doors the party of warlocks found Captain Vengar standing with raised spear. “I’m sorry, my lords,” he began.

  That was as far as he got before the spear splintered and fell to the floor in a dozen pieces; the steel spearhead bounced ring-ingly on the marble floor while the shattered fragments of the wooden shaft tumbled and rolled in various directions. Hanner had no idea which warlock had destroyed the weapon; it might have been a joint effort.

  “Stand back, Captain,” Faran said. “We’re here to talk to the overlord.”

  Whether Vengar would have stood back voluntarily Hanner never found out; before the soldier could begin to respond he was picked up by invisible forces and slammed back against the tapestried wall, his helmet hitting the fabric with a loud, ugly thump. Hanner winced at the sound.

  Vengar was a decent man, trying to do his job, Hanner thought; he didn’t deserve such treatment. He glanced around, wondering which of the warlocks had done this.

  There was no sign, no indication of whether it had been Varrin, or Kirsha, or Faran himself, or someone else in the group now straggling in.

  Faran paid no more attention to Vengar, but marched down the grand hallway toward the golden doors of the main audience chamber with Varrin at his side and Kirsha on his heels. Hanner paused long enough to be sure Vengar was still breathing, then hurried after his uncle.

  The other warlocks trailed into the Palace behind him, and Hanner heard someone say, “Wow,” at his first sight of the interior. He thought the voice might have been Othisen’s, but he didn’t take the time to look back and see.

  He was too worried about what was about to happen. Uncle Faran was being overconfident, he was sure, and far too confrontational. The overlord might not be able to stop a gang of warlocks, but this sort of behavior was certain to eventually bring down the wrath of the Wizards’ Guild, and despite what Uncle Faran said, Hanner did not think the warlocks were a match for the Guild.

  Especially not when their most powerful members might vanish at any moment-Hanner noticed with dread that Varrin’s sandals were a foot off the floor.

  And before Faran could say a word to anyone Varrin spread his arms, and the golden doors did not merely open, but were smashed down, torn off their hinges, and then sent flying inward. Hanner winced at the sound of crashing metal; he had never heard anything quite like it. It was the sound of rattling pots and pans multiplied a thousandfold. He ran forward to grab Varrin, to try to calm him down.

  It was too late; the weaver was flying now, ten feet up, soaring the length of the immense audience chamber in a matter of seconds, and smashing out through the great window above the overlord’s vacant throne. Faran and Hanner had both run forward into the audience chamber, hoping to catch Varrin; now, as the last shards of tumbling glass shattered on the stone, they both stopped and stood side by side on the long red carpet that ran from the door to the foot of the throne.

  “May a thousand demons dance!” Faran said through gritted teeth.

  Hanner managed to avoid saying “I told you so” only by clenching his own teeth hard.

  Then he looked around, and realized that although the throne was empty and Lord Azrad not present, although the customary entourage of guards and servants was absent, the room was not totally deserted. Two figures stood to one side, cowering against the east wall below a tapestry showing someone directing the construction of a city wall.

  One was Lord Clurim, one of Azrad’s younger brothers.

  The other was Lady Nerra-Hanner’s sister.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Lord Faran waited impatiently until the entire party of warlocks had gathered in the center of the audience chamber, glancing now at his followers, now at his niece and Lord Clu-rim, now at the empty throne and the shattered window where Varrin had soared off into the northern sky. He made no attempt to address Clurim and Nerra-or for that matter anyone else. He simply waited.

  Hanner watched the warlocks and estimated the crowd at about twenty; he studied their faces, trying to judge their mood. He looked especially closely at Desset, clearly the most powerful of them now that both Rudhira and Varrin were gone, to see whether she was yet acquiring that haunted look that meant the Calling was affecting her.

  She seemed her usual self, so far. She, like most of the others, was looking around the room with awed curiosity.

  None of them had ever seen the place before, and even Hanner, who had grown up in the Palace and been in the audience chamber at least a dozen times before, had to admit it was impressive. The coffered and gilded ceiling was almost thirty feet above the polished stone floor-a floor that had been magically hardened to prevent wear, so that it still appeared new more than two centuries after it was laid. The walls were hung with gigantic, lush tapestries depicting scenes from Ethsharitic history, and between each pair of tapestries stood a statue. Legend had it that the statues were various criminals or enemies of past overlords, petrified and put on permanent display here, but Hanner had no idea whether that was true.

  Above some statues were balconies; above others were niches holding more statues.

  Down the center of the chamber, for almost its entire sixty-yard length, was a thick carpet elaborately patterned in shades of red, some five yards across; most of the warlocks now stood on this. To either side of the carpet stood rows of fine chairs carved of black oak-though just now, several of these chairs had been knocked over or smashed by the massive ruined doors Varrin had flung from his path. Half a dozen oaken tables were arranged along the walls, widely spaced.

  Daylight poured in from three windows at the north end of the room, above the great red and gilt throne. The two smaller windows, one on either side, were intact, while Varrin’s departure had broken out the central portion
of the central window, leaving intact the stained-glass rosettes around the border but reducing the lead tracery of the main section to twisted wreckage and allowing the salt-scented breeze to waft gently into the room.

  On the east side of the room, not far from the south end, and not far from one of the small side doors, stood Lord Azrad’s brother Clurim and Hanner’s sister Nerra.

  Lord Clurim was Lord of the Household, responsible for the smooth operation of the Palace; Lady Nerra had no official position as yet. Hanner had no idea why they were here in the audience chamber. They were not saying anything to the unruly bunch of warlocks that had just burst in; they were just standing there, watching.

  “Lord Clurim,” Faran said, turning to these two once the warlocks had gathered. He stepped off the red carpet toward them. “I seek an audience with your brother.”

  “Faran of Ethshar,” Clurim said, his voice unsteady. “Lord Azrad has ordered you into exile; he is not interested in speaking with you.”

  Hanner noted Clurim’s omission of the honorific in addressing Faran; that was a deliberate insult. Hanner had always considered Clurim little more than a harmless drudge, but he suddenly realized that the man had considerable courage. He knew Uncle Faran, knew his temper, and had just seen what warlocks could do to a set of doors weighing hundreds of pounds, but had intentionally insulted him.

  “You mean he’s hiding from me,” Faran said.

  Lord Clurim did not deign to reply, but Nerra made a wordless squeak of dismay. The warlocks watched silently. Hanner glanced at them and saw nervous faces-they had come this far following their leader, Lord Faran, but they clearly had not thought about what they expected to find.

  They didn’t know what they were supposed to do, so they were just watching, waiting for instructions.

  “Am I to have no chance to appeal my sentence?” Faran said. “If not to the overlord himself, then at least to your other brother-Karannin, Lord High Magistrate?”

  “You’re not being exiled as a criminal, Faran,” Clurim said. “You’re being exiled for the good of the city. The overlord has the power to do that.”

  “Of course he does,” Faran said. “But am I to have no opportunity to convince him that he’s making a-” “Lord Faran!” Kirsha shouted, suddenly bursting from her uncertain silence to interrupt. She pointed-not at Clurim, or Nerra, or any of the doors, but upward, at an angle.

  Hanner and Faran and the others looked up to see a gray-robed figure hanging in midair before one of the balconies, a dozen yards north of Lord Clurim. The figure had a hood pulled up and forward, hiding its face, but Hanner had no doubt this was a wizard rather than a demon or anything else inhuman.

  It stretched out a hand, pointing a long, bony finger at Faran. Hanner noticed that its other hand held a crystal goblet.

  “Lord Faran of Ethshar!” the wizard said in a voice that rolled out across the hall and echoed from the walls. “You knew that as an official in the government of Ethshar of the Spices magic was forbidden to you, by the pact made between the Wizards’ Guild and Lord Azrad the Great two hundred years ago, yet you gathered to you sorcerous talismans.” His pointing hand dropped to the dagger on his belt. “The penalty is death, and I have been sent to carry out the ordained punishment...”

  Lord Faran had not waited to see what the wizard wanted; instead he was levitating himself to confront the new arrival. He did not fly as easily or as well as Rudhira or Varrin or Desset had, but he was able to rise to the wizard’s height, to face this intruder eye to eye rather than looking upward like a child facing a parent.

  Then he spoke, his own voice booming out as unnaturally as the wizard’s, interrupting the wizard’s speech.

  “I am the Lord of Warlocks,” Faran said. “The Wizards’ Guild has no authority over me!”

  “Careful, Uncle...” Hanner said softly, staring up at the two men. He and Faran both knew that a wizard’s dagger held immense magic, and that goblet was surely not just some obscure ceremonial token.

  And to claim the title of Lord of Warlocks-who knew where that might lead?

  “You are condemned for crimes committed before the Night of Madness transformed you, Lord Faran,” the wizard said. “And thus, as commanded, I perform this spell.” He raised the goblet in one hand, drew his dagger with the other...

  And froze as Faran’s magic reached out-Hanner could see it, with his warlock senses. Warlockry seemed sharp and crisp, as if the air around Faran were impossibly clear; it closed around the wizard.

  But the wizard was surrounded by an aura of his own magic, especially around the tools he held, and where warlockry seemed preternaturally clear, Hanner perceived wizardry as a thick haze of distortion. Faran’s warlockry cut through that haze enough to stop the wizard’s hands for a moment, but the wizardry dissipated the warlockry, and Hanner could see that Faran’s hold was weakening.

  And then the wizard seemed to flicker-he vanished, and almost instantly reappeared a few inches to one side. Hanner had no idea what sort of spell had done this, but it was obviously some sort of prepared protection. Faran’s magic swirled and shifted, reaching out again, but not fast enough.

  The dagger plunged into the stuff in the goblet-Hanner could not see what it was, but there was something brownish in the crystal vessel. “No!” Hanner cried, lashing out with his own magic, desperate to stop whatever spell the wizard had prepared.

  He was unpracticed, untrained, and not much of a warlock to begin with. He tried to focus on movement, to halt whatever the wizard was doing, but he could not stop the wizard’s hands, could not even touch the goblet or knife through the haze of wizardry that surrounded them.

  Instead he reached into the wizard’s chest and closed his magic around the wizard’s heart. He squeezed, not to harm the man, but merely tostop him while Uncle Faran still lived.

  The wizard gasped and convulsed in midair, flopping like a speared fish-but Hanner was no longer looking at him; he was instead staring up at his uncle.

  Faran’s skin had gone white the instant the tip of the dagger had touched the substance in the goblet; a second later his clothes, too, were white and stiff. His green cloak was bleached to bone-white in an instant, and as rigid as bone. The braided black queue of his hair was as white as any old man’s, and frozen in midbounce.

  And then it was done. Faran of Ethshar had been turned to stone.

  And stone cannot fly. A statue cannot use warlockry to levitate. Faran’s petrified remains fell to the floor as if a string had been cut.

  And shattered. Shards of broken marble scattered in all directions, skittering and spinning across the magically hardened floor.

  “No!” Hanner screamed, running forward, knocking stone fragments aside.

  He heard the rustle of fabric and looked up to see the hooded wizard falling as well. The corpse landed with a sodden thump.

  Hanner stopped running. It was too late.

  For a moment complete silence fell as the occupants of the room stared in shock. Then Nerra screamed and collapsed, sobbing.

  Lord Clurim, recovering from his stunned astonishment, hurried to the fallen wizard.

  “They killed each other,” Kirsha said. She spoke quietly, but her voice carried in the stillness, and everyone present heard her.

  Desset looked at the broken marble, at the fallen wizard, at the shattered window, and announced, “I’m going home.” She turned, trembling, and walked quickly back out of the room.

  “The guards!” another warlock called after her. “What about the guards?”

  “Whatabout them?” Desset called back. “They couldn’t stop me on the way in, and they can’t stop me now.”

  “She’s right,” someone else said. “We can go. They can’t stop us.” “Why would theywant to?”

  There was a general mutter of agreement, and the entire group of warlocks began leaving.

  Hanner watched them go, but felt no urge to join them. He stood where he was.

  Thiswas his home, after al
l. He was back in the Palace where he belonged, and no one here knew he was a warlock. Under the circumstances, he doubted the overlord would demand he leave again.

  And he thought his sister Nerra would need someone to look after her, at least until the shock of Uncle Faran’s death had passed.

  He turned and hurried to Nerra’s side. He put a comforting arm around her, but did not say anything.

  Lord Clurim, kneeling beside the wizard’s corpse, looked up to see the warlocks flee, glanced at Hanner and Nerra, then told no one in particular, “I don’t know who this is-I never saw him before.”

  Hanner looked up. “He was from the Wizards’ Guild, he said. He didn’t give a name.”

  “I know,” Clurim said. “But he’s dead, and the Wizards’ Guild doesn’t like it when wizards die unexpectedly.”

  Hanner hesitated. He didn’t like to lie outright, so he didn’t want to say that Faran had killed the wizard and had already paid for it, but he certainly wasn’t about to admit thathe had stopped the wizard’s heart.

  “I’d better go tell Azrad,” Clurim said, getting to his feet. He hurried out one of the small side doors.

  And Hanner and Nerra were alone in the great audience chamber. Still holding his sister, Manner looked around the vast space.

  The doors were twisted into scrap, a dozen chairs broken. The statue that was all that was left of Lord Faran was shattered into a hundred pieces, the largest consisting only of the chest and one upper arm; the robed corpse lay across a few of the smaller fragments. The gaping hole in the central window was letting in warm, damp air that smelled of the sea.

  So much, Hanner thought, for the benefits of open confrontation.