Night of Madness

Chapter Forty-four

Hanner was on the third floor, going through the drawers of magical paraphernalia Faran had accumulated, trying to decide whether he should try to sell the entire collection as a lot or piecemeal, when he heard shouting.

He hurried to a front window and looked out at the street.

“Blast,” he said.

Soldiers were marching up High Street toward the house, for the third time since the Night of Madness.

“Doesn’t helearnt” Hanner muttered. Then he turned and headed for the stairs.

When he reached the parlor he found Sheila, Ulpen, Hinda, and Desset crowded at the front windows, watching the guards’ advance. “What’s happening?” he asked. “Are you pushing them back?”

“No,” Ulpen said. “How can we? There arehundreds of them!”

“I could,” Desset said uncertainly.

“No,” Hanner immediately replied. He looked at the others.

Ulpen was the most powerful of them, Sheila next, then himself, and finally poor little Hinda-and none of them were especially powerful; of the five warlocks in the room only Ulpen and Desset could fly reliably, and letting Desset fly might mean watching her fly off northward, toward Aldagmor. Hanner and Sheila could get themselves off the ground, rather unsteadily; Hinda couldn’t even manage that.

“Who else is in the house?” Hanner asked.

“Bern,” Sheila said.

“That’sam”

“The others are out recruiting,” Ulpen said. “You told them to go.”

Hanner could not deny that. He realized that he might have made a fatal error in allowing the group’s little remaining strength to be so spread out.

But he hadn’t thought Azrad would try again! Hadn’t he hadenough, having his doors smashed in?

And as he thought that, he looked out the window and saw the battering ram being brought into position. “This is stupid,” he said. “There’s no point in letting them wreck the house!” He hurried back into the hallway and opened the front door.

“Hai!” he called, using his magic to amplify his voice. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The soldiers stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him.

“Who’s in charge here?” Hanner bellowed.

Captain Naral stepped forward, up to the iron gate; Hanner waved a hand, and the gate swung open.

Naral watched this display of magical power expressionlessly, then stepped into the gateway and said, “I am in command of this party, Lord Hanner.”

“I’m not Lord Hanner,” Hanner replied, exasperated. “I am Hanner, Chairman of the Council of Warlocks.”

“The overlord does not recognize any such title,” Naral replied. “In fact, he now rejects the very word ’warlock.’ He has ordered that all the madmen wielding power given them by the spell that struck the World on the Night of Madness be removed from the city immediately, and from the Hegemony of Ethshar as soon as practical. Any who resist this order will be summarily executed.”

“If anyone’s gone mad around here, it’s Lord Azrad,” Hanner replied. “I knew he could be reluctant to face reality, but this is absurd!”

Naral’s rigid expression softened slightly.

“I think your uncle’s betrayal and death struck him hard, my lord.”

“I am not your lord!” Hanner said. “I know you mean well, Captain, but I cannot allow you to call me by that title. The Wizards’ Guild does not allow magicians to hold high office, and that includes warlocks.”

“The Wizards’ Guild has been notably silent on the subject of warlocks,” Naral replied. “The overlord has been trying to communicate with the Guild since the Night of Madness, and has received nothing but silence and vague promises of a later agreement. It hasn’t helped his temper, my... sir.”

“It hasn’t helped mine, either,” Hanner said. “I am trying to control it, Captain, but this is the third time Lord Azrad has sent troops to remove loyal citizens of Ethshar from this house. I would think he would have learned better by now.”

“Lor... um, Hanner...”

“Address me as Chairman, if you need a title,” Hanner said. He had not been using a title, but clearly Captain Naral would be happier with one.

“Chairman, then,” Naral said. “Lord Azrad is not the fool you seem to think him. We know that Lord Faran is dead, and that your most powerful magicians have flown off northward-though we don’t know why. We know that most of the others have scattered through the city, trying to recruit more people into your outlaw band.”

“Outlaw?” Naral refused to be interrupted; he continued, “You have only a handful of people here at present. I have three hundred men and a dozen assorted magicians with me. I believe that we can take you by force, if necessary. My orders are to destroy this center of insurrection once and for all, burn the house and smash the walls — the overlord sees it as a center of rebellion and demands that it be removed.”

“Rebellion?” Hanner said. “You clearly have people watching us-magicians, presumably. You know we’ve been recruiting warlocks to join us. Has anyone told you what terms we’ve been offering those recruits?”

He waited a second or two, but Naral plainly did not intend to answer.

“We’re requiring them to swear to obey the overlord’s laws, Captain! What sort of rebellion is that?”

“I have my orders, Chairman Hanner,” Naral said. “I am to remove you if possible, kill you if not, and then destroy this house.”

Hanner’s temper got the better of him; he reached for the captain’s throat, not with his hands, but with warlockry, and squeezed gently.

Naral’s breath stopped, and his eyes widened. His hands flew to his throat. Behind him, a dozen soldiers raised their weapons.

“I could kill you before you could touch me, Captain,” Hanner said. Then he released his hold.

Naral gasped, swallowed, then said, “And this is how you obey the law, Chairman?”

Hanner started to respond, then stopped.

Naral was right. Hanner had said that warlocks would obey the city’s laws, and the overlord made those laws. The whole point of his Council of Warlocks was to convince everyone that warlocks would be law-abiding citizens.

But if they were to be exiled anyway, what was the use of it all?

Still, he saw no ethical way out. He had said they would obey the law, and obey it they would.

Perhaps, if they were obedient enough, even Azrad would be ashamed and revoke his sentence of exile.

“Captain,” Hanner said, “you’re right. We will accept the overlord’s judgment. However, I want to make a few things clear first.” He raised his voice, putting his magic behind it.

“If we chose to fight,” Hanner said, “you might defeat us, but many of you would die in the process. We have the same right to defend ourselves and our home as any other citizens of Ethshar. Be grateful that we donot choose to fight-and tell the overlord so. We have sworn to behave as peaceful citizens, and we will abide by that oath-tell the overlordthat, as well. We will accept the overlord’s commands-but we ask him to reconsider. And we ask for a few moments to gather our belongings from our home before you destroy it. I would point out that my uncle spent much of his fortune in furnishing this house, and the overlord now proposes to simply throw away this wealth in his foolish fear of warlocks. Furthermore, he is acting against his own best interests-with the Council driven from the city, the warlocks who remain in hiding will be free to kill and steal, unhindered by any oaths or the oversight of their fellow warlocks. May he enjoy this unjust and wholly avoidable disaster he has brought on himself!”

Captain Naral hesitated. Then he said, “You’ll come peacefully?”

“We will,” Hanner said-though he could feel a mental pressure that he knew was the other warlocks, watching him and disagreeing. “May we fetch our belongings?”

“You have a quarter of an hour,” Naral said.

“Thank you.” Hanner bowed slightly, then turned and marched back into the house.

The others met him in the hallway.

“Hanner, have you gone mad?” Desset demanded.

“We swore to obey the law,” Hanner said. “This is the ultimate test of that oath. If we fail the test, then they’llnever trust us. If we yield, Lord Azrad may reconsider-or some warlock who never agreed to the Council’s terms in the first place may stop his heart one night, and his son may think better of driving us away.”

“I could send them all running back to the Palace!” Desset said.

“And you’d be flying northward to Aldagmor ten minutes later,” Hanner retorted. “Now, we need to grab whatever we want to take with us. Someone tell Bern to bring the household funds, if there are any left. Everyone get your own belongings ready by the door, then come upstairs-we’re warlocks, so we should be able to carry a goodly portion of Uncle Faran’s collection of magic, and I expect we’ll be able to sell that anywhere.”

“I don’t like this,” Hinda said.

“None of us do,” Hanner told her. “Now, go on-we only have a few minutes!”

They were hauling their bundles out into the dooryard, ignoring the taunts of the watching civilians, when Hinda burst into tears. Sheila hurried to comfort her.

“I’ve never been out of the city!” Hinda wailed. “I don’t want to go!”*

“None of us do,” Sheila told her as she wrapped her arms around the younger girl. Ulpen and Desset watched the two girls silently. The scene reminded Hanner of something; he turned to Captain Naral.

“I still have family in the Palace,” he said. “My two sisters are there. Could someone take them word of what’s happened?”

“I think...” Naral began.

He didn’t finish the sentence; as he spoke the earth suddenly shook, and a tremendous roaring rilled the air. Soldiers tumbled to the ground. Hanner watched in astonishment as the surface of the street rose up into a mound, sending guardsmen rolling away to every side.

The disturbance was contained in a small area, though-Hanner could see that while Warlock House and its immediate neighbor to the east were shaking, as was the house directly across High Street, the buildings on the far side of Coronet Street or farther along High Street were still and solid.

This was not, then, a natural earthquake.

The mound rose higher and grew wider until it stood perhaps eight feet high and twenty feet across, filling the street from the iron fence in front of the dooryard of Warlock House almost to the front of the house across the street; then it split open. A fissure began near the top on the side facing Hanner, quickly stretched vertically, and then widened. The two halves of the mound fell away, crumbling to dust and sinking back into the street.

And where the mound had been stood half a dozen wizards, in their finest robes, each with a gleaming dagger in his or her right hand, and a six-foot staff in the left.

The rumbling stopped and the dust settled, leaving the wizards standing silently in a cleared circle of street, scattered guardsmen lying strewn about them.

Hanner recognized all the wizards’ faces from the meeting in that mysterious columned hall. He smiled wryly. He still didn’t know why the wizards had appeared, here and now, but he was impressed.

“They certainly know how to make an entrance,” he said, to no one in particular.

Captain Naral had caught himself against the gatepost and stayed on his feet; now he turned to face the wizards and demanded, “What are you people doing here?”

Hanner couldn’t fault the captain’s courage; not many men would shout like that at a group of wizards who had just manifested themselves so spectacularly.

“We have come to prevent Lord Azrad from making a mistake,” Ithinia of the Isle announced, raising her staff. “The Wizards’ Guild recognizes the Council of Warlocks as our equal in rights and privileges under the ancient laws of Ethshar, and as the rightful governing body of all warlocks. The overlord has no more authority to exile the Council from this city, nor to destroy its headquarters, than to exileus, or destroy our homes.”

Captain Naral looked quickly at Hanner, then back at the wizards.

“Oh,” he said.

Hanner cleared his throat. “In light of this new development, Captain,” he said, “perhaps you might take it upon yourself to return to the Palace and ask Lord Azrad to reconsider your orders.”

“I think that’s an excellent suggestion, my lord,” Naral replied.

Hanner didn’t bother correcting him this time.

As Naral turned to go an old man shouted at the wizards, “Are you all mad? The warlocks stole my son!”

One of the wizards raised her staff and gestured, then spoke.

“Kennan of the Crooked Smile,” she said, “your son Aken was not taken by warlocks. Aken was a warlock himself, and was drawn to his doom in Aldagmor by the same power that draws all warlocks. Go home and tend to your son’s family, not to some misdirected vengeance.”

Kennan’s jaw dropped, then snapped shut. He blinked, backed away a step, then turned without another word and began marching away.

Hanner watched him go and saw that the other watchers who had haunted High Street were starting to scatter as well.

“Thank you,” he said to the party of wizards. “As one magician to another, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you.”