Night of Madness

Chapter Thirty-two

The glowing images that floated in the air above the table faded away, leaving only the torchlight, but it was a moment before any of the wizards spoke.

“Impressive,” the white-haired wizard said at last.

“Yes,” said the beautiful woman. “Lifting loaded freighters as if they were toys...” She shuddered. “And there was the warlock in Ethshar of the Rocks who killed poor Lopin. I’m afraid we really must take this as a serious threat to the proper order of things. We can’t put off acting indefinitely.”

The red-robed man at the head of the table turned to Kaligir. “Was this Shemder of yours capable of anything like that?” he asked. “I don’t think so,” Kaligir replied. “He relied on speed and subtlety, rather than power. And of course, the fact that there was absolutely no outward sign of preparation or action-he could be standing right there, kill someone, and no one would know who had done it.”

“That worries me,” the white-haired man said. “If we move prematurely, we might just drive the warlocks underground.”

“There’s no need to be hasty,” the red-robed wizard said. “I would suggest that we acknowledge that warlocks are true magicians, powerful ones-anyone who can kill a wizard so quickly, by magic, is a powerful magician. Anyone who can raise a mountain of water is a powerful magician. The Guild has never forbidden an entire school of magic because, as our comrade from Sardiron says, that often merely drives it underground-but I don’t believe we have ever before had any potential competition this powerful, this dangerous. Whether we forbidthis one remains to be determined-but I believe it would be appropriate to enforce our existing strictures on magic.”

“Carefully, though,” Kaligir said. “I don’t think any of us should forget what happened to Lopin.”

“Carefully, of course,” the red-robed wizard agreed.

Lord Azrad stood at the window of his favorite sitting room, staring northward, watching the waves slosh back and forth along the Grand Canal and seawater drip from the eaves of the warehouses.

Then he turned to face his brothers-it was Lord Clurim who had spotted the warlocks flying past and had called the overlord to the window to watch, and Karannin and Ildirin had joined them later.

“They’re growing stronger,” he said. “They must be stoppednow. Clurim, call Captain Vengar-ready or not, I want Captain Naral to movenow. And then go find Lady Nerra-maybe she can tell us something of what her mad uncle plans to do, other than inundate Spicetown.” As Clurim bowed and turned to go, Azrad demanded, “Karannin, Ildirin, can’t one of you get a response from the Wizards’ Guild?”

“Icertainly can’t,” Karannin said. “I’ve talked to dozens of wizards, and they assure me that the masters of the Guild are aware of the situation and discussing it, and that they know you want to talk to them, but beyond that-nothing.”

“Have you spoken to the Sisterhood or the Brotherhood?” Azrad asked as Clurim quietly closed the door behind himself.

“The Brotherhood is terrified of the warlocks,” Ildirin said. “They tell me that pitting them against Lord Faran’s company would be like trying to boil a hundred gallons of soup with a single candle. The Sisterhood is not quite so frightened, but they agree that warlocks are far more powerful than witches; any campaign they might undertake would have to be slow and subtle.”

“We don’t havetime for subtlety!” Azrad roared. “What about the others?”

“The gods can’t even see most of the warlocks,” Karannin said. “At least, that’s what the theurgists tell me. And when theycan see them, they still won’t take action except purely defensively— you know how the gods are about not interfering. I don’t know whether it’s the oath they took two hundred years ago or just their nature, but they won’t intervene.”

“Demonologists aren’t much better,” Ildirin said. “I’ve corresponded with half a dozen since the Night. They don’t agree on much of anything, but none of them seem inclined to go to war with the warlocks. Apparently demons can see warlocks just fine, but they can’t tell them apart from ordinary people-naturally, they’d be the opposite of the gods. If you summon a demon and order it to kill a specific warlock, it will presumably do its best to obey, but we don’t know how successful it would be, or what the repercussions might be, and you can’t just tell one, ’Go kill all the warlocks.’ It can’t find them without names.”

“We could at least have Lord Faran killed,” Azrad said thoughtfully. “We knowhis name.”

The other three looked at one another.

“Perhaps we could,” Karannin said, “but would it be wise? First and least, there’s the question of cost...”

“Which isn’t trivial,” Ildirin said. “Demonologists are expensive.”

“The city treasury could surely afford it,” Azrad said.

“Yes,” Karannin said, “but that brings us to the second question, justification for doing so.”

“He’s a traitor,” Azrad said. “That’s good enough.”

“My lord brother, our laws and customs require a trial for any capital offense, even treason, and the accused must be permitted the opportunity to defend himself. Sending a demonic assassin-”

“Can be justified,” Azrad interrupted. “We can arrange for him to die resisting arrest. Hehas resisted arrest once, after all, and I’m sure he’ll do it again.”

“Perhaps,” Karannin conceded. “But the third and most cogent question is what the Wizards’ Guild will think and do if we hire a demonologist to carry out an execution. You know as well as I that that violates their rules against the governmental use of magic.”

“Surely they’ll make an exception!”

“The Wizards’ Guild doesn’t make exceptions,” Ildirin said.

“And even if they might, you’d need to convince the demonologist of that beforehand,” Karannin said. “I never met a demonologist who didn’t consider himself more than the equal of a wizard, but I also never met one willing to take on the entire Guild. That’s my fourth question-if the Guildwould permit us to use a demon assassin, would the demonologist trust us-and them?”

“Surelyone demonologist would-”

“My lord brother,” Ildirin interrupted, “I think we’re getting distracted here. The mechanism for killing individual warlocks is not really that important-if we have the Guild’s approval we can simply letthem handle executions, without needing to bring the added risk of dealing with demons into it. And if wedon’t have the Guild’s approval, I doubt any other magicians will cooperate.” “Then we need their consent, and damn them all, why won’t theygive it?”

“They did agree we could hire wizards to aid in arresting warlocks,” Karannin reminded him, pointing at the door where Clurim had vanished a moment before. “That’s a start.”

“Not much of one,” Azrad grumbled.

“Azrad, you just sent Clurim out there with instructions to turn the entire city guard and every wizard we could hire to the task of removing Faran’s company from the city. Why don’t we wait and see what comes of that before we start worrying about involving the Guild more directly?”

Azrad glowered at him.

“Do you think it willwork}” he demanded. “After what we just saw out there?” He jerked a thumb at the window.

Ildirin grimaced.

“No,” he said. He hesitated, and added, “And I don’t know how Lord Faran will react to the attempt, either.”

The overlord froze for a moment, then frowned. He slowly said, “I hadn’t thought of that.”