Night of Madness

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  "How can she fly like that?" the guardsman to Hanner's left muttered. "I can barely lift myself a foot off the ground, and there she is, swooping along as if it were nothing!"

  "And I can't get off the ground at all," Hanner replied. "Obviously, this thing affected people differently."

  "Well, it didn't affect you at all, my lord," the soldier said. "I can move things, as she can-but I can't fly."

  "So she got more of this ... this warlockry than you did," Hanner said.

  "But why?"

  "My guess would be random chance."

  "My lord!" One of the flyers, an older man in a fancy linen tunic, was calling.

  Hanner looked up and realized he ought to know the man's name, but didn't. "What is it?"

  "There's someone flying," the man called down. "Off to the right, on Circus Street."

  "I'll take a look," Rudhira said.

  "Go ahead," Hanner said as the woman veered sideways and swooped up Circus Street. He broke into a run, into the intersection and around the corner.

  The other warlocks hesitated, looking at one another, unsure what to do. "Stay together," Hanner called back over his shoulder as he peered into the darkness. There were no shops along this stretch of Circus Street, no lanterns, and all the windows in the half-timbered little houses were dark; only the torches at the corner gave any light.

  He saw Rudhira's target now-a boy, scarcely old enough for breeches, hovering in midair above the center of the street.

  "Stay back!" the boy called. He held up an arm warningly, but none too steadily.

  Rudhira stopped suddenly and hung motionless in midair where she was. Hanner did not think she had done so deliberately; the boy had stopped her somehow.

  "Oh, you think so?" she said, and the boy abruptly dropped to the street, landing on his back on the hard-packed dirt with the wind knocked out of him. Rudhira swept down and landed beside him. She didn't touch him, but Hanner could see the boy struggling unsuccessfully to sit up.

  "Don't you try to push me around, boy," Rudhira said.

  "Don't hurt him!" Hanner called as he ran up panting. "We don't know whether he's done anything ..."

  "I haven't," the boy gasped.

  "He tried to knock me down," Rudhira said. "I felt it."

  "I was just pushing you away," the boy said. "You frightened me!"

  "Why?" Rudhira asked angrily. "Why should you be scared of me?"

  "You were flying!"

  "So were you!"

  "But I... you're bigger than me."

  This was just barely true, given Rudhira's rather small stature, but she was definitely an adult, while the boy definitely was not.

  "And my magic is stronger," Rudhira said, finally letting the boy sit up. "Don't you forget it, either."

  As Hanner went down on one knee beside the boy he glanced up at Rudhira, but said nothing in reply. He was not happy to hear her words; she sounded a little too assertive about her newfound abilities. Apparently she was the most powerful of his group of warlocks, but that didn't mean she had the right to push anyone around.

  "Are you all right?" Hanner asked the boy, offering a hand to help him up.

  "I guess so," he said, taking the hand and getting to his feet. Hanner noticed that the boy was looking past him; he glanced over his shoulder and saw that the rest of his party had turned the corner and was watching intently. The other two flyers, the old man in the linen shirt and a plump nondescript woman, were on the ground now.

  Hanner wished he had taken the trouble to learn everyone's name, so he could call instructions, but he hadn't. He turned back to the boy.

  "What are you doing out on the streets at this time of night? Shouldn't you be at home with your parents or your master?"

  "My parents told me to stay outside until I stopped moving things and bumping into things. I was trying to learn how to control this magic."

  "Warlockry," Hanner said. "That's what the witches call it."

  "Well, whatever it is, I didn't ask for it!" the boy said in a thoroughly aggrieved tone. "I had a nightmare and I woke up in midair over my bed, and I knocked the pitcher off the nightstand when I let myself fall, and it broke all over the floor and woke up my brothers, and then my mother came and ordered me out of the way while she cleaned up the mess, and I stumbled on the stairs and went flying and knocked over a lamp, and my father yelled at me and told me to go outside if I was going to bump into things. So I did, and I've been practicing flying. And other stuff." He looked at Rudhira. "How did you make me fall? I know how to push things, but you did something different."

  "It's easy enough," Rudhira said. "I'm not sure how to explain it, though. I used some of my magic to ... to erase yours, sort of."

  "Can you teach me how? And how to fly better?"

  "I don't think this is the time or place for that," Hanner interjected firmly as the rest of the party came up to join them. "I think it's time you went home and went back to bed. If this magic hasn't gone away by morning come to the Palace and ask for Lord Hanner, and I'll see if someone wants to teach you some tricks."

  "You're Lord Hanner?"

  "Yes, I am. Now, go home. On foot."

  "Yes, my lord." The boy glanced at the motley collection of people staring at him, then turned and ran down Circus Street. At a corner he turned again and was out of sight.

  That left Hanner standing at the front of his little mob of warlocks. "You didn't ask him to join us," the guardsman said.

  "He's just a child," Hanner said, "and it's the middle of the night." He glanced at the soldier. "What did you say your name is?"

  "Yorn of Ethshar, my lord."

  "That's right, Rudhira told me. Yorn, don't you think we have enough warlocks already?" He gestured at the others.

  "I suppose so, my lord," Yorn admitted.

  "I think so," Hanner said. "If something happens to prove I'm wrong, you're welcome to say you told me so."

  Yorn didn't answer that.

  "Come on," Rudhira said, rising into the air. "Let's get to the Palace." She swooped overhead like an immense red bird, back toward Arena Street.

  With a sigh, Hanner followed, the others trooping or gliding along-the other flyers were airborne again.

  They had gone another dozen blocks when a woman came running out of Fish Street onto Arena, glancing about wildly. She stopped at the sight of Hanner's group, hesitated, her attention clearly focused on Yorn's uniform.

  "What's wrong?" Hanner called.

  "You're ... you ..." She stared about wildly, and then froze, speechless, when she saw Rudhira and the other two flyers.

  "Yorn, tell her we won't hurt her," Hanner ordered.

  "It's all right, ma'am," Yorn said. "These people are all under control. Now, tell Lord Hanner what's wrong."

  "Down there," the woman said, pointing back along Fish Street. "It's horrible! Two of them, throwing everything around ..."

  "I think we'd better take a look ..." Hanner began-but then he stopped. Rudhira was already swooping around the corner, flying down Fish Street. Hanner sighed again. "Come on," he told the others, waving them forward as he ran after Rudhira.

  The entire party broke into a run-or a glide, for those capable of flight-in pursuit of Rudhira. They were not evenly matched; the faster quickly left the slower behind.

  They heard the confrontation before they saw it-people shouting, glass shattering, loud thumping. At last Hanner rounded a curve and stopped.

  Rudhira was still airborne, but only a few feet off the ground, her waist roughly even with the top of Hanner's head. Her hands were flung up defensively, guarding her face as a storm of hard and heavy objects flung themselves at her-bricks, stones, broken furniture. All turned aside before they reached her, to drop harmlessly to the hard-packed dirt.

  Fifty feet farther down Fish Street two men hung in the air, one scarcely out of his teens and dressed in a fine velvet tunic that was at least a size too small, the other middle-aged and wearing good brown homespun. The street b
eneath them was strewn with debris-and bodies. At least four people lay motionless amid the rubble, and Hanner could not tell whether they were alive or dead.

  It was from this field of rubble that objects were rising and accelerating toward Rudhira.

  The entire scene was eerily lit by the flames of burning buildings; several of the houses and shops here had been torn open, their doors, walls, and windows ripped out into the street, and spilled lamps or flung torches had set curtains, carpets, and other furnishings ablaze in the ruined interiors thus exposed. One thatched roof had caught as well; fortunately, Hanner noticed, the surrounding roofs were proper tile, so the flames might not spread-though burning wisps of straw might be carried on the hot winds ...

  "Gods!" someone behind Hanner said.

  "Don't just stand there," Hanner snapped. "Stop them!"

  The other two flyers in Hanner's party had already come up alongside Rudhira; now the three of them formed a united front, and the hail of flying rubble slowed and stopped. Rudhira lowered her hands and glared at the two men.

  "You shouldn't have done that," she said in a voice that carried unnaturally, echoing from the walls still standing on either side.

  "Mind your own business, witch!" the young man bellowed back.

  "Warlock," Rudhira answered. "Not witch. I'm a warlock now, just as you are."

  "Oh, no," the man replied. "Not like me. I'm the most powerful of all!"

  "You haven't proved that to my satisfaction," the older man barked.

  "I would have, if she hadn't interrrupted!" He turned his attention from Rudhira to the older man. "I already knocked down three people who thought they could match me-"

  "You're forgetting something," Rudhira interrupted. "It took both of you to stop me-and now I have help!" She raised her hands again-not in a defensive gesture, but spread wide in defiance.

  The young man dropped heavily to the ground and fell back, lying supine across a smashed window frame.

  "The rest of you keep the other one busy," Rudhira ordered as she glided forward, toward her downed opponent.

  The older man looked alarmed and started to turn away.

  "Stop him!" Hanner ordered. "All of you but Rudhira-knock him down!"

  It was as if a gigantic hand had swatted him from the sky; the older man smashed into the ground flat on his face and lay stunned.

  Hanner was somewhat stunned as well, though for only an instant. He had not realized how effectively his warlocks could work together.

  "Just hold him," Hanner said. "Don't hurt him." Then he turned to Rudhira.

  She loomed over the young man, her red dress catching the firelight vividly, almost seeming to glow-in fact, Hanner thought it might be glowing. Given how little was known about this new magic, this so-called warlockry, that would hardly be surprising.

  Rudhira hovered about five feet up, arms spread, glaring down at the young man struggling to rise-not to sit up, but to lift himself off the ground. He fluttered slightly, like a fallen leaf stirred by the wind, but could not levitate himself more than an inch or two against Rudhira's resistance.

  At last he let himself fall back. "You killed more than three, then?" he asked.

  Hanner gasped-but Rudhira snapped, "I didn't kill anyone!"

  "But then how can you be so strong!"

  Rudhira frowned more deeply. "What are you talking about?" she demanded.

  "Isn't that how it works?" the man asked. "I got stronger each time I fought and defeated another one of us ... a warlock, you said?"

  "That's what the witches called us," Rudhira said. "It's as good a name as any."

  "And you didn't kill other warlocks?"

  "You're a fool," Rudhira said. "I didn't kill anyone. We're all different-some stronger than others. I was just lucky."

  "But I got stronger" the man protested. "I know I did! I felt more powerful after each fight!"

  Rudhira stared down at him for a moment.

  "Yes, I'm sure you did," she said, disgust plain in her voice. "Have you ever heard of practice? I don't know what warlockry is, but I know it gets easier with practice-the more I use, the more I can feel it waiting to be used. You were stronger after each of your stupid fights because of that, you idiot, not because you were stealing your enemies' power!"

  "Is that really how it works?" Manner asked, but neither Ru-dhira nor her opponent heard him.

  If it was so, then any hope he might have had that these warlocks would all use up their power and return to normal was gone.

  He turned to the older man and stepped forward, picking his way through the wreckage. "Hold him down," he called to Yorn and the others as he approached.

  Hanner's route took him past one of the bodies, an old woman, and from the glassy staring eyes and bloodless complexion he was fairly certain she was. dead. He didn't look; instead he focused on the older warlock.

  The man was recovering from his fall-enough to turn his head and look up at Hanner.

  "My lord," he said, recognizing Hanner's attire.

  "Let me go," Rudhira's foe said. "I'll go away if you let me up!"

  "Just keep him there for now," Hanner called back over his shoulder. Then he returned his attention to the older man.

  "That one says he killed three people," Hanner said, indicating the other downed warlock with a jerk of his head. "How many did you kill?"

  "I didn't try to kill anyone," the older warlock said.

  "Just let me go!" the younger warlock said. "If you're right that it's just practice, then there's no reason to hurt me!"

  "Shut up!" Hanner bellowed at him. "Rudhira, you keep him right where he is." He turned back to the older man.

  "You didn't try to," he said. "Did you?"

  "I might have," the warlock admitted. "I did make some of the mess, I admit it-I was defending myself against that lunatic!"

  "Why did you help him fight Rudhira?"

  The older man shrugged. "A mistake," he said. "That fool attacked me-challenged me, he said, for control of the street. I got caught up in it, and when she interrupted us it seemed like an unwelcome nuisance."

  Hanner nodded. "The heat of battle," he said. "I've heard it can make a person do stupid things."

  "Yes, exactly, my lord."

  "And now that the battle's over, what do you intend to do?"

  The man glanced around at the rubble-strewn street, the burning buildings, the old woman's corpse.

  "I suspect I will stand trial before a city magistrate, where I will plead for leniency because I was driven mad by my nightmares and this new magic." He sighed. "And then I suppose I'll spend the rest of my life as a slave or in a dungeon somewhere, if I'm not simply hanged."

  "If your plea for leniency is accepted, you might just be flogged or exiled from the city," Hanner said. "And I think you can reasonably point to all the others who ran wild tonight as evidence to support your case. I take it you're surrendering to us?"

  "I don't have much of a choice."

  Hanner smiled slightly. "No, you don't," he agreed.

  Then he turned to the other man. "What do you have to say for yourself?" he asked.

  "I went mad too, I think," the younger man said. "I thought I was chosen, that the dreams meant I had to do something with this power I was given. I thought I would fight my way up, killing the others and taking their power, until I was the most powerful magician in the World, and then I would rule all of Ethshar."

  "What about the overlord?" Rudhira demanded. "He rules Ethshar, and he's not a magician at all!"

  "I was going to kill him," the man admitted.

  "That's treason," Yorn said.

  "Lord Azrad's a fat old fool!" the warlock shouted, sitting up-Hanner saw Rudhira's startled expression when he was able to do so; she had clearly not intended to let him up.

  "He's still the overlord," Hanner said.

  "Not my overlord," the warlock said, struggling against something invisible.

  "Stop fighting," Hanner ordered him.

&nb
sp; "May demons gnaw your bones," the warlock said. He raised a hand-and suddenly his head twisted around to one side, impossibly far, and Hanner heard the snap of breaking bone. The warlock fell back, limp and lifeless.

  Rudhira smiled with satisfaction. Hanner stared up at her. "You didn't have to kill him!" he shouted.

  "He was a traitor and a murderer and I was defending myself," Rudhira said flatly.

  That was obviously true, but Hanner was still upset by her actions. He started to phrase a further protest when the older warlock said, "I helped her."

  "He did," Rudhira agreed.

  Hanner looked from one to the other. He had the distinct feeling that his control of the situation was not as secure as it should be, and that any further disputes would only erode it further.

  "Well, what's done is done," he said. "Get up, you, and come along-we're heading for the Palace, and if you cooperate we'll put in a good word for you when the time comes." He reached down a hand to help the warlock up.

  The older man rolled over and took Hanner's hand.

  A moment later the entire party was once again marching down Fish Street, leaving the surviving inhabitants of the neighborhood, now warily emerging from their ruined homes, to put out the fires and clean up the mess.

  Chapter Eight

  Kirsha sat in the middle of the street, wrapped in wine-red velvet while a cluster of stolen jewelry orbited slowly above her head, and shivered, despite the warmth of the summer night and the heat from the burning tannery a block to the north. Bolts of cloth lay strewn on the street around her. It wasn't a dream. She was sure of that now. She had begun to doubt it some time ago, when she realized she could feel the heat of the flames and the hard ground beneath her bare feet when she landed. Her dreams were never so detailed as this.

  It was magic, some terrible magic, and she had been caught up in it and done crazy things. She had stolen all this pretty cloth, a dozen silver rounds' worth at the very least, and the jewelry, which was probably worth the same in gold. She had smashed in people's shop windows, and had flung broken window glass at people who annoyed her ...

  She shuddered at that, and thanked the gods that she hadn't hit anyone.