Night of Madness

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  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 to stop 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?"

  "What about 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 they want 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.

  This was his home, after all. 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 that he 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.

  "Come on," Hanner said, getting to his feet and taking Nerra's arm. "Let's go upstairs, away from all this. I'll send someone for Alris later."

  "He's really dead," Nerra said-the first intelligible words Hanner had heard from her in days.

  "He's really dead," Hanner confirmed.

  "Lord Clurim wanted me to tell him what Uncle Faran was planning," Nerra said as she stood up, still somewhat unsteady. "When I couldn't do that he wanted me to try to talk him into accepting exile. We were waiting here to meet Lord Azrad to discuss it."

  "It wouldn't have worked," Hanner said.

  "I know. I could never talk him into anything he didn't want to do." She glanced at the dead wizard. "At least he took his killer with him."

  "I wonder if anyone's ever done that before," Hanner murmured.

  Of course, Faran hadn't really done it, but it would make a good story.

  And the Guild had executed him not for warlockry, but for all his years of accumulating magical paraphernalia when he was Azrad's chief advisor. The wizard had said so.

  That presumably meant that the Wizards' Guild still had not yet decided to wipe out the warlocks-at least, not officially. Otherwise, why bother explaining the reasoning in killing Uncle Faran?

  Someone should talk to them, Hanner thought. Someone should convince them that warlocks meant no one any harm. At least, the surviving warlocks; obviously, Uncle Faran had been dangerous, but he was gone.

  Someone had to talk to them.

  It was the Guild, after all, that was the real threat to the warlocks; Lord Azrad and the city guard were not a serious problem. Faran had demonstrated that much before he died. So long as the warlocks worked together, ordinary people could not harm them- only magic.

  But magic could probably slaughter them all. Not just wizardry; Hanner had no idea how warlocks would fare against a horde of demons, or the ancient Northern weapons the sorcerers used.

  And it appeared that their own magic would defeat them, in time, as it had Rudhira and Varrin.

  That, at least, was slow, and could be anticipated and countered. If a warlock took the nightmares as a sign to stop using his magic, Hanner thought that he might live out the rest of a normal life in relative peace. Hanner certainly intended to try.

  Of course, that was assuming there were no more surprises in the nature of warlockry, and Hanner didn't know whether that was the case. Nobody did.

  The Calling put a real limit on what a warlock could do. Lord Azrad had feared that a warlock might take over the city, declare himself ruler in the overlord's place-and in fact, Faran might have intended to do just that.

  But doing that, Hanner saw, would be slow suicide. In ord
er to hold power claimed by magic the warlock would need to use his magic regularly, to prove it was still potent, to fight off competing claimants-and if he did that, then the Calling would take him that much sooner.

  If someone would just explain that to Azrad . . . and, more importantly, to the Wizards' Guild.

  But it wasn't Hanner's problem. He had done enough. He had fought against the chaos on the Night of Madness, and been banned from his home for his efforts; he had helped the warlocks band together, and seen his uncle murdered in response. And talking to anyone wasn't his strong point; he always said the wrong thing.

  He had done enough, and he had had enough.

  "Come on," he told Nerra, turning away from the wreckage. "Let's go upstairs."

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Manrin looked out a third-floor window at High Street. It had taken a quarter hour for the watchers to trickle back after Lord Faran had led his party off toward the Palace, but they had returned, and once again were flinging bricks and stones at the house.

  None of these missiles ever struck the building; the warlocks remaining downstairs deflected them all. It seemed a rather pointless exercise, really, but that didn't stop the attackers.

  No one would ever dare throw rocks at wizards that way, Manrin thought. Wizards had respect. Warlocks, at least so far, clearly did not.

  Lord Faran would have to change that.

  Manrin considered that for a moment-what would it take to change it? What did wizards have that warlocks didn't?

  Well, they had been around longer, of course. They often wore distinctive robes. And they had the Wizards' Guild, with its clear-cut rules. They were a familiar part of the World, while warlocks were still new and strange. Warlocks looked like ordinary people, but they weren't, and that scared people. They didn't know who the warlocks were.

  That was something Lord Faran should fix, once he had taken over the city from Lord Azrad-as Manrin was sure he would do.

  He should give the warlocks some sort of uniform and devise a set of rules, Manrin thought, and then send someone out to explain the rules to everyone. Make them consistent and familiar, that's what would help them fit in.

  And convince those people out front that no, the warlocks had not stolen their family and friends.

  Lord Faran hadn't done any of that yet. He had gathered all the warlocks together, which was good, since there was strength in numbers, and he had given them some leadership and a little basic organization, sorting out who could do what, but he had left them a motley, ill-assorted bunch and kept them hidden away in this mansion, and he hadn't set out solid rules. He hadn't even tried to talk to the rock-throwers about their missing loved ones.

  Manrin decided he would make some suggestions when he next saw Lord Faran.

  Then he noticed, out in the street, that the watchers were looking east along High Street rather than at the house. He leaned forward and peered off to the left.

  Running figures were approaching-and flying figures, as well. Warlocks, returning from the Palace! Manrin started to smile, thinking that this meant the conquest was already secured, but then he stopped.

  Why were they running?

  "Oh, no," he said.

  He didn't see little Rudhira's distinctive green skirt and red hair, or Varrin's multicolored linen tunic, or Lord Faran's silks, and he wasn't sure what that meant, but he didn't think it was a good sign.

  Then the vanguard of the returning warlocks neared the line of watchers, and the watchers were abruptly flung back, tumbling down the street as if swept by a gigantic hand, clearing the area in front of the house.

  The returning warlocks would be in the house in seconds, and Manrin decided he wanted to be there, to hear what had happened. He turned and headed for the stairs.

  A moment later he trudged panting down the steps-he was really too old for all this climbing and wished that people in Eth-shar of the Spices didn't build such tall houses. In Ethshar of the Sands only a handful of structures had more than two floors-the Palace, the Great Lighthouse, Grandgate-because the ground wasn't stable enough to support anything higher without either magic or amazing luck. A four-story house was ostentatious even here; back home it would have been completely ridiculous.

  By the time he was midway down the second flight the ground floor was swarming with frightened people, awash in a babble of voices.

  One of them was Ulpen, who looked up the stairs and called, "Master!"

  Manrin stopped.

  Other warlocks heard Ulpen call out and looked up the stairs at Manrin. The old wizard could hear them muttering to one another.

  "... he's a wizard, he knows about magic ..."

  "... can talk to the Guild ..."

  "... used to running things ..."

  "... has experience..."

  "Master," Ulpen said loudly, "Lord Faran is dead. Will you lead us now?"

  Manrin frowned. The lad was being ridiculous. And Lord Faran was dead}

  Manrin had not expected that. He had not thought anything would stop Lord Faran, certainly nothing short of an all-out assault by the Wizards' Guild.

  "What happened?" he asked. "How did he die?"

  "A wizard turned him to stone," Kirsha called up to him.

  "But he killed the wizard, too," someone added.

  Then the Guild had intervened. That was bad. Manrin had hoped that the Guild might indeed come to the aid of their fellow magicians in the end.

  "We need a leader, Master," Ulpen said.

  Manrin snorted derisively. "I'm an old man, a wizard," he said. "I'm not a lord. I'm not even from this city."

  "We need someone, Master. You were a Guildmaster, even if you weren't a lord, and isn't that more appropriate for a group of magicians?"

  "It sounds to me as if you're taking charge, Ulpen!" Manrin tried to make plain in his tone and expression that he thought this was a good thing. If someone was going to face the Guild's wrath, Manrin would be happy to have it be someone other than himself. And the Guild might well take pity on a mere apprentice.

  "Me?" Ulpen gasped, a hand on his chest. "I'm only sixteen!"

  "And I'm a hundred and eleven, which is too old to be running around fighting soldiers."

  "We'll fight for you!" Othisen shouted. There was a ragged chorus of agreement.

  Manrin sighed. It was clear he wasn't going to get out of this easily-and really, if someone was going to have to negotiate with the Guild, he had to admit he was more qualified than anyone else in this mad assortment.

  But he still didn't want the honor. "Is there no one else more suitable?" he said. "What about that other young lord, Lord Han-ner?"

  "He's not even a warlock," Ulpen said.

  "And he didn't come back with us," Kirsha added. "He stayed in the Palace with his sister."

  "He did?" This was from Lady Alris, on the fringe of the crowd. She had been sitting in the parlor when the others had returned from the Palace, and now she was standing in the doorway, listening.

  Several voices replied, and the gathering dissolved into noisy chaos for a moment. Manrin, looking down from above, noticed young Sheila, the former apprentice witch, standing in one corner, clearly trying to say something, but being ignored as the others all shouted at one another. She appeared to be on the verge of tears.

  That was too much. He could never stand the sight of weeping children, and Sheila reminded him of his granddaughter Pianette.

  "Silence!" he bellowed, hands raised, augmenting his voice with warlockry as Rudhira had taught him.

  Silence fell. A dozen worried faces looked up at him.

  "It would seem I am your new leader, whether I like it or not," Manrin said. "Well, if I am to lead you, I need to know who you all are, what you can do, and what has happened so far-as you may have noticed, I have spent much of my time upstairs, using what wizardry I still have to study our situation. I have missed details of events down here, even while I learned things the rest of you don't know. I do have some ideas-I had intended
to speak to Lord Faran about them upon his return, but it appears that if he is indeed dead, I will have to act on them myself. First, though, I need to know just what has really happened, to Lord Faran and to the rest of you." He pointed at Ulpen. "I'll hear you one at a time, starting with my apprentice."

  For the next two hours Manrin questioned the other warlocks. He learned about the Calling, and how it had taken Rudhira and Varrin; he learned about Lord Faran's ghastly death at the hands of the Wizards' Guild. He took a roll call, learning who was still in the group and who had fled, going home or hiding elsewhere, and he sorted the warlocks out by their level of power, as Faran had.

  When that was done he thought he had a fairly good understanding of the situation-and he didn't like it much. Varrin had done serious damage to the Palace, and Faran had slain a high-ranking member of the Wizards' Guild-executions were never left to anyone of low rank. The party as a whole had further antagonized the entire city by their march through the streets.

  But it might not be too late to make amends, Manrin thought. Lord Faran's death, while a tragic loss, was also an opportunity. Their dead leader could be made a convenient target for the city's anger and mistrust. The warlocks could blame Lord Faran for all the harm they had done, absolving the survivors of any responsibility.

  But, Manrin was convinced, they had to present themselves as real magicians, a lawful part of the city, not a mysterious, lawless, alien force.

  He started to explain this to his new followers, but had not gotten very far before Kirsha demanded, "How?"

  Manrin stopped. "How what?" he asked.

  "How can we present ourselves as normal magicians? We're not-we're from all over the city, from a dozen different backgrounds, not people who served a proper apprenticeship to learn a trade. Just look at us!"

  "You have a point," Manrin said, "and I've thought about it. I think we need to do something to make ourselves look more like a coherent group. Perhaps if we all dyed our clothes to one color? Red might be nice. Is that man Bern around? He might be able to help ..."