Night of Madness

Chapter Four

At the same instant that Lord Hanner stumbled on the streets of Newmarket, and the same instant that Lord Faran sat up in bed and began coughing, Varrin the Weaver awoke suddenly in his third-floor bedchamber atop his workshop-home in the Seacorner district of Ethshar of the Spices. He awoke gasping for air. He had dreamed he was wrapped in his own cloth, buried in thick, heavy wool, trapped under tons of material after falling through a hundred miles of impossibly fine lace that had shredded as he fell through it, shredded and burned around him.

He awoke in darkness as complete and black as in his dream and he pushed out in all directions, with arms and legs-and with something that had never been there before, something that let him see and feel the walls of his little garret despite the darkness, something that let him push at those walls...

And burst them outward, snapping oaken beams like sticks of kindling, shattering plaster into white powder. Its support removed, the roof fell in on him and his wife.

And he caught it, before it reached his upraised hands, caught it and held it.

Then he froze, finally awake enough to realize what was happening. He could feel the night air blowing in where the walls had been; he could hear the distant rattle of wreckage and broken furniture bouncing from the awnings and overhangs and falling to the street. He could hear distant screams. He could feel the mass of the roof, pressing down harmlessly on something he couldn’t describe, and even over the screams and falling debris he could hear his wife’s ragged breathing. She was awake, beside him in the darkness, not moving.

“Annis?” he said.

“Varrin?” she replied. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I had a dream that I was being crushed, and... and the walls are gone, and I’m holding up the roof, but I don’t knowhow.”

“You’reholding it?” Annis rolled out of the bed and fell to the floor, then got to her knees and stared at Varrin. He couldn’t see her clearly in the dark-even with the walls gone, the dim glow of the lesser moon and the city’s fires didn’t provide much light— but he could sense her, just as he could sense the roof hanging over him, pressing into his awareness.

She was terrified, and part of that terror was directed athim.

“Go downstairs,” he told her. “Then I can put this down and make a light and see what’s going on.”

“Yes,” she said, scurrying away from the bed, snatching her robe from the hook on the bedpost. She got to her feet, keeping her head lowered, and ran for the bedroom door.

The door was gone. The entirewall was gone. She almost fell down the open stairwell before catching herself on the remaining fragment of railing. She half ran, half tumbled down, out of Var-rin’s sight-and out of his strange new awareness of his surroundings, as well.

Once he was sure she was safe, he looked up at the ruins of the roof and ceiling. Huge cracks ran through the remaining plaster, and chunks had fallen away, exposing the wooden beams. He studied it and saw that he was holding it together as well as holding it up. Keeping the space above him unavailable to the wreckage, he let it go.

The roof split into two large pieces and a thousand small ones, falling down on either side of the bed. The crash shook the entire house and echoed from the upper stories of the surrounding buildings, and as some of the smaller fragments skittered down the walls to the street Varrin found himself gazing up at the cloudy night sky.

Dark shapes flew swiftly across his field of vision, headed northward, but before he could recognize what they were, they were gone.

He sat up and looked around at a landscape that no longer made sense. He was still in his bed, his familiar feather pillow at the head, the quilt Annis had made from factory scraps bunched at the foot-but his bedroom was gone, reduced to a pile of rubble lying all around the bed, atop the still-solid lower floors. The broad rooftop that had extended out behind the bedroom was intact, though the ruins of the back wall were strewn across it; the clothesline where Annis hung their laundry was undamaged, the last batch of washing still swaying gently in the breeze.

The houses on either side still stood; the one to the south, on the other side of the tiny alley between street and courtyard, was untouched, while Kelder the Felter’s roof, to the north, was now strewn with broken planking and bits of shattered roofing tile.

That view to the north was oddly fascinating; he stared at it for a moment before tearing his gaze away and looking at his own house again.

Only the one room and its adjoining hallway, the little wooden addition he had built atop the original structure so that more room below could be used to store fabrics, had been damaged-but that one room had been not just damaged, but obliterated.

“Gods,” he said. “What happened?”

No one answered.

He swung his feet over the side of the bed, kicking aside a chunk of ceiling, and stood up-and realized he was naked. He looked for the wardrobe, but it had plunged into the alley.

He had clothes on the line, though. He pushed himself upward, thinking he would climb across the wreckage.

Instead he found himself floatingabove the wreckage.

“Gods!” he said again.

This was magic, of course-but what kind of magic? Who was doing it? Had he managed to offend a wizard or sorcerer without knowing it?

He moved himself eastward over the broken roof and fetched girdle, tunic, and breeches from the line. He dressed hastily and looked out over the city to the west.

A building was on fire somewhere-he could see leaping flames and a bright orange glow. The screaming had stopped, but there were voices in the street, shouting at one another. Who was up at this hour? Had the destruction of his home woken the whole neighborhood?

He made his way to the stairwell and hurried downstairs.

He found Annis in the front showroom on the ground floor; she was staring out the front window at the street.

“What’s happened?” he asked her.

She whirled and stared at him. “Don’tyou know?” she asked.

“No,” he said, puzzled. “It’s some sort of magic that smashed our room, obviously, but I don’t know why or who did it.”

“Youdid it, somehow!”

“But...” Varrin stopped, remembering.

Yes, hehad done it. He didn’t know how or exactly why— something to do with a nightmare of being smothered-but yes, he had done it.

And he had held up the roof, which must have weighed hundreds or thousands of pounds, and he had flown across the wreckage like a wizard with a levitation spell.

“How did you do that?” Annis demanded.

“I don’t know,” Varrin said. “You mean you can’t? I assumed that whatever it was happened toboth of us.”

She waved that idea away. “It’s justyou” she said. “At least, in here. There are others out there.” She pointed at the window.

“There are?” Varrin glanced at the window.

“Yes,” Annis said. “I saw them.”

“Maybe I had better go talk to them,” Varrin said. “They might know what’s happening.”

“Yes,” she said, stepping backward, away from him. “You do that.”

“Annis, don’t be frightened,” he said as the firelight from outside spilled across her face and let him see her eyes. “Especially don’t be frightened ofme.”

“But I’m not sure itis you!” she wailed. “What if you’re some demon that took my husband’s form?”

“Annis, I’m me. I’m Varrin.” He stepped toward her. “We’ve been married for thirty-one years-you know me!”

She squealed and backed away again. “Go away!” she said. “If you’re really Varrin, go find out what happened to you!” He stopped, baffled.

“All right,” he said at last. “I’ll go see what I can find out.” He turned away.

A moment later he was out on the street, looking around in confusion.

Something in him wanted to go north, but that was absurd; he lived and worked just three blocks from the beaches along the eastern shoals and four blocks from the city’s eastern wall. Almost the entirety of the city of Ethshar lay south and west of Seacorner.

He could hear voices shouting to the south; he turned and headed toward them, and found his feet leaving the ground. At first he fought it, but then he turned up a palm, lifted his feet, and flew.

At the same time as the others, Kirsha the Younger dreamed of fire and falling and then entombment somewhere deep beneath the earth, dreamed she was fighting her way upward through unyielding soil, and then awoke to find herself floating a foot or so above her bed. She stared up at the too-close canopy of her bed in astonishment, awash in unreasoning panic.

Then the panic popped like a soap bubble, and she smiled as understanding dawned.

“I’m still dreaming,” she said.

She rolled over in mid air and pushed herself toward the bedroom window.

It worked, just like in so many other dreams-she could fly, swim through the air like a fish through water. She didn’t even have to wriggle like a fish; thought alone was enough to propel her.

Kirsha felt the cool night air on her bare skin as her bedsheet slipped free and fell away, could hear voices in the street outside— and some of them were screaming.

She wondered why, but then dismissed the question. This was adream; it didn’t need to make sense.

It was the oddest flying dream she had ever had, though, starting with a vague nightmare like that and then turning so intensely real. Still, she was enjoying it.

She reached the window and fumbled with the latch, then opened the shutters-or rather she made the shutters fling themselves open, she didn’t use her hands. She looked out at the night.

People were flying, dozens of them. Kirsha smiled happily at the thought of sharing her newfound talent. She swung open the casement, planning to fly out into the street.

Then she realized she was still naked.

It probably didn’t matter in a dream, but still, she hated dreams where she went outside naked and could feel people staring at her. She flew quickly across the room to a chest of drawers and found a tunic and skirt. A moment later she was soaring above the streets, watching people running below and flying above. She didn’t see anyone she knew, and did not want to talk to strangers, even in a dream-at least, not yet-so she did not rise up to join the other flyers.

They were all going the same direction, anyway, and she didn’t want to go that way. She wanted to look at the shops on Dyer Street and see what pretty colors the cloth there had in this wonderful dream. They were lovely in real life, as she had seen when she and her mother went over there just two days ago, but her mother had refused to buy her any of the best fabrics for a new tunic.

And there was that jeweler around the corner, where her parents had refused to even set foot inside the door.

Her parents weren’t even in this dream, though, as far as Kirsha could tell, so she could do anything she pleased.

She would smash out the shop windows and take the things she liked best, she decided, and then fly away, like a big brightly colored bird. She would fly to the lesser moon and see why it was pink, and she would find a handsome prince from the Small Kingdoms or a Sardironese baron there, and...

She was getting ahead of herself, she decided. First she should see whether Dyer Street was even there in this dreamworld.

People below her were screaming, but she paid no attention. She swooped around the corner, laughing.

Someone was bellowing, and Kennan of the Crooked Smile woke up, annoyed at the interruption of his sleep.

The noise faded away quickly-whoever was bellowing was moving away very fast. Something about it bothered him though, so Kennan did not immediately go back to sleep.

And then he heard running footsteps in the corridor, and then his son’s wife Sanda shouting, and he climbed out of bed and grabbed a robe.

“What is it?” he demanded as he stumbled out into the dark hallway. “What’s happening?”

No one answered; he hurried to the door of his son’s bedroom and found it standing open. He stepped inside warily-he didn’t want to intrude. Aken and Sanda were sensitive about their privacy.

Aken was nowhere to be seen; instead, Sanda was standing at the open casement, leaning out and calling, “Come back! Bring him back!”

“What’s happening?” Kennan asked again.

Sanda turned, and even in the dim light from the open window Kennan could see the tears gleaming on her cheeks. “He’s gone,” she said. “They took him!”

“Who’sgone?” Kennan asked, confused.

“Aken,” Sanda said. “I was downstairs, closing the shutters, and I heard him shouting, so I ran up to see what was wrong, and I got here and the window was open-look at the latch!”

Kennan looked. The iron latch had been twisted into an unrecognizable lump.

Kennan still didn’t understand. He didn’t understand where Aken was or what had happened to the latch. It looked as if someone very, very strong had crushed it in his fist.

Aken was a strong young man, but he wasn’tthat strong.

“Where is he?” Kennan asked.

“Gone!” Sanda shrieked, pointing out the window. “I saw him flying away! Theytook him!”

“Whotook him?” Kennan was beginning to comprehend, though he didn’t want to. “What do you mean, flying?”

“Flying!Through the air! By magic! The magicians took him!”

“Sanda, that’s crazy-why would magicians take Aken? What magicians?”

“Those magicians, out in the street,” she said, pointing. “They’re flying around smashing things. And they took your son, I saw it.”

Kennan, not really wanting to look, tiptoed across the room and looked past Sanda, out the window.

It was as she had said-there were people flying through the streets and up above the rooftops, most of them heading north, toward the docks, and there were things flying with some of them-clothes and jewels and furniture. It was all madness.

And there was no sign of Aken.

Like so many others, Zarek the Homeless awoke from a nightmare, screaming-and was astonished to hear perhaps a dozen other scattered voices screaming as well. He sat up, still wrapped in his moth-eaten blanket, and looked out at his surroundings.

He lay in the middle of the Hundred-Foot Field, not far from where Sway Street met Wall Street, in the Westwark district of Ethshar of the Spices. Around him were the blankets, tents, and crude huts of scores of the city’s other destitute-and several of them were screaming, though the number of voices seemed to be declining rapidly. A lantern flared up nearby, and voices chattered excitedly inside little Pelirrin’s tent.

“Shut up and let me sleep!” someone called as the last two or three voices continued to scream.

One voice dropped to a low moan; another fell silent. Finally only one woman’s voice still screamed, a thin, breathy wailing that sounded almost like a night wind-but the air was still.

“Blasted magicians,” someone said.

“Is that what it was?” another voice asked.

“What else could it be? People waking up screaming all at once-if that’s not magic, I’m Azrad the Great.”

Zarek could hardly argue with that; he wondered idly whatkind of magic it was, and why it had affected him. It clearly hadn’t struck everyone, or there would have beenhundreds screaming, rather than a dozen or so, but it had struckhim, all right. His throat was sore from screaming-though his throat was often sore anyway, from bad water and worse food or the various contagions found in the Field.

He tried to rememberwhy he had been screaming, and could only remember a feeling of suffocation and entrapment.

He mused about the significance of this. It might be important, he supposed.

In the morning he would go make a few inquiries-talk to the guards at Westgate, maybe, or see if anyone in the Wizards’ Quarter would answer a few questions. Perhaps there was some way he could capitalize on being included in this misdirected magic-he thought he might get a decent meal out of it, anyway. Maybe some curious wizard would pay him for a report on what had happened.

In fact, he thought, maybe he shouldn’t wait until morning. That woman was still screaming, and he wasn’t going to get back to sleep right away, and if he waited someone else might collect whatever payment the magicians might be willing to make. He kicked aside his blanket and got to his feet.

A moment later the woman finally stopped screaming, but Zarek had already headed eastward into the city streets.

Throughout the city, dozens of others tried to figure out what had happened, or rolled over and went back to sleep, or panicked and ran or flew out into the streets. Hundreds walked or ran or flew northward.

And in Ethshar of the Sands, forty leagues to the west, the same scenes were repeated, on the same scale.

In Ethshar of the Rocks, far to the northwest, again the same events played out, though fewer people were affected there than in the more southerly cities.

In farms and villages beyond the walls of the cities, throughout the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, people awoke choking or screaming, and a few of those who had been awake all along felt the touch of a strange new power. In the Baronies of Sardiron, in the war-tornlandof Tintallion, in the many tiny nations of the Small Kingdoms, magic flashed across the World and drove unsuspecting people from their beds.

Everywhere, those touched by the magic and those who saw them wondered what had happened, what this unfamiliar magic was, what would happen next.

And nowhere were there immediate answers to any of these questions.