Night of Madness

Chapter Two

Hanner and Mavi were in no hurry as they made their way out of the Palace, across the plaza, and up Arena Street into the New City. The torches and lanterns in the gateways and intersections provided plenty of light, but the daytime crowds had thinned to almost nothing; the dust of the streets had settled and the night breezes, blowing south from the sea, were salty and pleasantly cool-though the Grand Canal still stank. Once they had gone a few blocks that smell faded, and they slowed even more.

They paused in front of one of the larger mansions and admired the fountains and statuary visible through the wrought-iron fence. Hanner found himself holding Mavi’s hand and seriously considering kissing her.

But then she pulled away to point out a particular piece of sculpture, the marble figure of a sleeping cat, and the opportunity had passed.

“Do you think that might have been a real cat once?” she asked.

“Why would anyone petrify a cat?” Hanner asked.

“For practice, maybe?” Mavi suggested. “Or for revenge against the cat’s owner? If you’re asking that, then why would anyone carve an image of a cat?”

“To put in his yard, like that,” Hanner said, gesturing at the little statue.

“Ithink some magician did it for practice before setting out to avenge some slight by turning ahuman to stone.”

“If it was just for practice, wouldn’t the wizard have broken the spell afterward?” Hanner asked.

“Are petrifaction spells reversible?” “Some are, some aren’t,” Hanner admitted. “Wizards usually call the reversible spells ’superior,’ and the irreversible ones ’irreversible,’ so I think they prefer the ones that aren’t necessarily permanent.”

“I suppose,” Mavi admitted, her head tilted thoughtfully as she studied the cat. “But maybe this particular wizard didn’t know the superior ones. Or his vengeance failed and his enemy killed him before he could undo it.” She frowned. “Would the magician have to be a wizard?”

“Ithink so,” Hanner said. “A theurgist wouldn’t do something like that, and I never heard of witches doing anything that unnatural. I suppose there might be some way for a sorcerer or demon-ologist to do it, but I never heard of such a thing.”

Mavi turned and looked at him curiously. “Why do you know so much about magic? I thought you said your family wasn’t allowed to study it!”

“We aren’t allowed touse it,” Hanner corrected her. “The lords of Ethshar are not permitted to learn magic, nor to use magic for our personal benefit-though of course we’re free to hire magicians if it’s for thecity’s benefit, or else the whole government would fall apart. But we can learnabout magic all we please, and that’s what I do, ever since my mother died-I talk to magicians for my uncle. He’s obsessed with magic, and whenever he’s not actively working on the overlord’s business or chasing women, he’s out trying to learn everything he can about it.” He sighed. “And when heis busy with his women or the overlord’s business, I go out and try to learn about magicfor him.”

“It sounds exciting.”

“It isn’t, really.”

“Oh,” Mavi said. “Is it at least interesting, then?”

“Sometimes,” Hanner said. He was not entirely comfortable with the subject. He gave the stone cat a final glance, then stepped away from the fence and said, “Come on.”

They moved on down the block and turned left onto East Street, leaving the fine houses and spacious yards of the New City for the ancient, cramped buildings of the Old. Neither of them was inclined to linger in the Old City nor to speak openly there, but a mere fifth of a mile brought them to the massive stone levee at the upper end of the Old Canal, and beyond that they were in Fishertown.

“Now, why doesn’t that canal smell as bad as the other?” Hanner asked when they were safely clear of the forbidding streets of the Old City and surrounded by the ordinary homes and shops of Fishertown.

“Better drainage, perhaps?” Mavi suggested. “And the odor’s none too sweet, at that.”

“Hmph.” It annoyed Hanner that the Old Canal, which divided Fishertown from the Old City, somehow contrived to not stink anywhere near as strongly as the Grand Canal that surrounded the overlord’s palace and connected it to the sea.

The two ambled on through Fishertown and into Newmarket, where they turned onto Carpenter Street and found Mavi’s home, a narrow three-story stone house wedged tightly between two other similar structures.

Despite the address her father was not a carpenter at all, but a dealer in tools and weapons who, among other things, provided the city guard with their spears. Mavi’s mother worked as bookkeeper in the family business, and Mavi managed the household. Nerra had explained all this to Hanner when she first realized her brother’s interest in the subject.

Hanner had not been here before, though. He stopped in the middle of the street when Mavi pointed out her home. He had been holding her hand again; now he released it and said, “Well, there you are,” as he looked up at the house.

The stone was weathered, but had been finely polished once. The broad window lintels were carved with floral designs that might once have been brightly painted, though it was hard to be sure in the dim light from the torches at the corner. An oil lamp shone from one front window, but the walls were thick enough, the window deeply set enough, that little of that light reached the lintels. Brackets that had once held heavy shutters now supported pairs of copper chimes instead, chimes that occasionally rang a soft note in the gentle sea breeze.

Two broad stone steps led up to the front door, which was painted dark green and trimmed with black iron. A small niche beside the door had probably held a shrine once, but was now decorated with a pot of flowers.

All in all, Hanner thought it was a fine example of a traditional Ethsharitic home, but one that had changed with the times rather than being carefully preserved.

“Thank you for walking me home,” Mavi said. Then, to Han-ner’s pleased surprise, she kissed him before turning and hurrying to her parents’ door.

Hanner stood in the street for a moment after Mavi had vanished into the house, savoring the memory of that kiss.

He had been kissed before, but not by Mavi. He had not been entirely sure until this moment that she reciprocated his interest in her.

It wasn’t unreasonable, he told himself. After all, Mavi came from a family of tradespeople, comfortable but far from truly rich; a match with a lord, even one so unimportant as himself, would surely be seen as a step up the social ladder. And he wasn’t actively repulsive, even if he didn’t have one-twelfth his uncle’s charm.

And maybe she really liked him.

He felt considerably younger than his twenty-three years as he stood there staring at the closed green door of Mavi’s home. He hadn’t been seriously shy around women since he was sixteen or seventeen, but somehow Mavi brought back the uncertainties of adolescence.

Did this mean he was falling in love, perhaps?

That seemed silly, but he had to admit the possibility.

He also had to admit that his feet were hurting badly. It was time to limp home to bed. The sun had set hours ago, the streets were almost deserted, and Uncle Faran had undoubtedly had his way with Isia, or whatever her name was, by now.

He looked up at the sky. Wisps of cloud obscured most of the stars and turned the black of night to a dull dark gray, making it impossible to judge the exact time. The lesser moon was low in the east, but Manner could not remember when it was due to rise and set.

A shooting star burned its way across the heavens, from southwest to northeast, as he watched-an extraordinarily big, bright one, he thought. He wondered whether it was natural or the result of some fiery spell; perhaps it was no star at all, but a wizard flying somewhere.

Whatever it was, it was not his concern. He sighed, turned, and began trudging back toward the Palace.

He had just reached the corner where he turned from Carpenter Street onto Newmarket Street when he stumbled and gasped. He did not knowwhy he had stumbled; he felt as if something had struck him, but nothing had. He had a momentary sensation of heat and smothering, but it passed-and he had no time to think about it, really, before the screaming began.

He straightened up, his eyes wide. Several voices were screaming somewhere in the distance-at least four or five, perhaps more. They had all begun simultaneously, at the exact instant he had gasped.

Something crashed somewhere far off; he heard glass breaking and heavy things falling.

Mostly, though, he heard the screaming.

Then, as he tried to determine which direction the screams were coming from, they stopped, one by one-and as they did he realized they had come from several different directions.

Half a dozen voices scattered all over Fishertown and Newmarket had begun screaming simultaneously. No single natural shock could have caused that.

“Magic,” Hanner said. He remembered the shooting star he had seen moments before and wondered whether there was a connection. He frowned. He hoped that this wasn’t the beginning of trouble.

He couldn’t think of any particular spells that would have caused it, but magic-especially wizardry and demonology-could be unpredictable.

He looked up at the sky, but there were no more shooting stars. He did see several dark shapes moving in the distance-large night birds, perhaps, or wizards flying on some errand. He couldn’t judge their size well in the darkness.

And it was then he heard the shattering of glass, much closer at hand than before, and renewed screaming, from somewhere ahead and to the right. He broke into a trot, despite his sore feet, and steered toward the sound.

Someone might need his help.