Night of Madness

Chapter Five

Lord Hanner ducked down in the doorway of a potter’s shop, hands over his head, as a nightgowned woman flew past shrieking at the top of her lungs, surrounded by a cloud of kitchen knives, broken glass, and miscellaneous debris. When she had passed he straightened up and looked after her.

Despite her screams, he could see no sign that she was injured or in pain; presumably she had simply panicked when... when whatever it was that happened had happened. She appeared unhurt and seemed to be controlling her magically propelled movements and the movements of her accompanying objects.

Anyone who wasn’t quick enough getting out of her way was likely to be hurt, though.

As the wind of her passage died away Hanner wondered what he should do. He was a lord, one of the overlord’s servants, responsible for keeping order in Ethshar, and whatever wild magic had broken loose moments earlier, it was definitely not orderly. That flying woman hadn’t been the first manifestation of out-of-control magic he had encountered in the quarter hour since the screaming and other commotion started-nor the second, nor the fifth. Something magical was definitely loose in the city, and definitely causing trouble.

So far he had been unable to make sense of it; the people he had encountered who were caught up in the magic, whatever it was, had shown no interest in talking to him. They didn’t seem to want any help, either, not even the ones who were still screaming. Instead they tended to fly about wildly, and some of them seemed willing to smash anything that got in their way.

“Is she gone?” a voice behind him asked. Hanner started.

“I think so,” he said, turning to find that a plain woman of uncertain age had opened the door of the shop. She peered about cautiously, then stepped out beside Hanner.

“Why was she screaming?”

“I don’t know,” Hanner said.

“Is she a wizard? She was flying, wasn’t she?” “She was flying,” Hanner agreed, “but I don’t think she’s a wizard. There’s some kind of magic causing trouble. She might be hurt-maybe we should follow her, see if we can help...”

The woman snorted.“I’m not going after anyone who can fly! If you want to deal with magic, find a magician. I’m just a potter.” She looked back and forth along Newmarket Street. “Are there any more?”

“There were other people screaming earlier, but I don’t-”

Hanner’s sentence was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass.

“I think there are more,” he concluded.

“Then I’m staying inside,” the potter said. “Andyou should go somewhere else.” She pushed Hanner out of the doorway into the street, then stepped back inside her shop and slammed the door shut.

Hanner looked around.

“Go somewhere else,” the potter had told him-but where? He could just go home-while it was his responsibility in general to keep order, no one could fault him for not getting involved with some mysterious magical mess that was none of his doing.

Buthe would fault himself. He and his uncle were the closest thing the overlord had to experts on magic, and it was his duty to find out what was going on.

“If you want to deal with magic, find a magician.” That was obvious advice-and obviouslygood advice. And the best place to find a magician in Ethshar of the Spices was the Wizards’ Quarter.

Presumably the wizards and the rest would already know what was happening, but it wouldn’t hurt to make sure and see whether he could be helpful. If he went on down Newmarket to East Street, then turned left on Fishertown Street...

He began jogging, despite his tired feet.

The route wasn’t quite as simple as he had hoped, as Fisher-town did not go through to Arena Street, but twenty minutes later he was crossing Games Street into the Wizards’ Quarter.

Along the way he saw at least a dozen more instances of the strange magic running amok-looted shops, people or objects flying, doors and windows shattered, and a distressing number of buildings aflame. Although the streets were largely deserted, even more so than usual at this hour, the few people Hanner did see either seemed to be using the magical power, fleeing it, or caught in it. Several people ran and hid at Hanner’s approach.

For his own part Hanner refused to be cowed-he was a public servant, a city official, and was determined to act like one, within reason. He marched on, facing the out-of-control magicians he encountered.

In one case a woman was walking along with a man held screaming in the air over her head-eight or nine feet over her head. Hanner hesitated, considered intervening-but then she took off as well, flying away with the man in tow. Whatever had happened had clearly not been limited to Newmarket and Fishertown; Hanner saw people and things flying about in the Old City, the New City, Allston, and the Arena district. He wondered just how widespread the mysterious effect really was-did it extend outside the city walls of Ethshar of the Spices? Were the other two great cities of the Hegemony affected? Or the Small Kingdoms, or the lands to the north and west of Ethshar?

But that was absurd. Who would unleash a spell powerful enough to cover so great an area as that?

Of course, the broader the affected area, the less likely the effects would be permanent-perhaps the spell, whatever it was and whoever was responsible, would fade away soon, and his trip halfway across the city in the middle of the night would have been for nothing.

He was here now, though-and he was not the only one. He could hear voices ahead, angry voices.

He hoped the madness had not affected any wizards or other magicians-that could bereally dangerous. He forced himself to trot faster.

At the corner of Wizard Street he turned and found himself facing a crowd.

It was perhaps less than an hour beforemidnight, but unlike anywhere else he had been, the street was full of people. Torches and lanterns, ordinarily extinguished by this hour of the night, were brightly ablaze; doors and windows stood open, and dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people were milling about, talking excitedly. Some wore ordinary tunics, skirts, and breeches; others wore the formal robes of magicians; and some had clearly come directly from their beds and were dressed in nightshirts or hastily donned household robes. Most of them looked scared or at least nervous.

No one seemed to be in charge; instead the crowd was gathered into small groups, a few voices in each arguing loudly, while people around the periphery would drift from one bunch to the next. Hanner guessed that these were people at least as confused and frightened by the night’s events as he was, come, as he had, to seek the help of the city’s magicians.

And judging by the snatches of conversation and debate he overheard, no one was getting very satisfactory answers.

He hurried down the block, listening, but heard nothing that hinted at an understanding of what was happening.

These were apparently all wizards here, though, and Hanner thought other kinds of magicians might know more. He turned left at the end of the block, then right, and trotted into Witch Alley.

This area was quieter-witchcraft was generally a quieter sort of magic than wizardry, and its practitioners and purchasers followed suit. Still, there were two or three dozen people clustered in the street and in doorways, talking. Here, too, they wore the same assorted clothing; he even saw one man in the yellow tunic and red kilt of the city guard.

Hanner spotted a familiar face, one he had hoped to see, and called, “Mother Perréa!”

The old woman at the center of one of the smaller groups turned. “Lord Hanner,” she said. She beckoned to him, and ignoring the aching of his feet he ran up to join the handful of people gathered about her. He paused there, struggling to catch his breath, and the witch asked him, “Did the overlord send you, my lord, or your uncle?”

Hanner shook his head. “Neither,” he said. “I came on my own.”

“And have you come to ask questions or answer them?”

“Ask them, I’m afraid,” he said. “Though I’ll answer any I can.”

“Then let me answer the most obvious and say that we do not know who or what is responsible for this outbreak of magical madness.”

Hanner’s face fell. He had told himself, after seeing the situation on Wizard Street, that this was the most likely answer, but he had still hoped. “Do you knowanything about it, then? Is it a wizard’s spell gone wrong, perhaps, like the legendary Tower of Flame?”

Perréa turned up an empty palm. “We don’t know what it is— but we know a few things it isn’t.”

“That would be better than nothing,” Hanner said.

“It isn’t wizardry at all,” she told him. “I don’t know whether the wizards themselves have determined that yet, but I can assure you, it’s not wizardry. The feel of it is entirely different.”

That astonished Hanner; he had not thought anything but wizardry could be so powerfully chaotic. “Is it witchcraft, then?”

“It’s more like witchcraft than wizardry, but no, it’s not witchcraft. A witch could not have the strength to do some of what we’ve seen. Nor is it sorcery, nor theurgy-the priests have consulted Unniel and Aibem, and there is no question.”

“Demonology?” Hanner couldn’t think of any other possibilities that remained. It was unimaginable that any of the lesser magicks he was familiar with, such as herbalism, could be responsible for something like this.

“We have not yet ruled that out, but neither have we found any evidence to support it,” Perréa said. She pointed at a black-robed man a few yards away. “That’s Abden the Black, an excellent demonologist, and as trustworthy as any I have dealt with-”

“Which is not a strong endorsement, is it?” Manner interrupted.

Perréa smiled. “No, I’m afraid it’s not-but he assures me that this is no sort of demonology he knows, and he seems quite sincere. My craft can read truth and falsehood in most people, and although it’s not completely reliable on demonologists, I believe him.”

Before Hanner could ask another question, one of the others in the group interrupted.

“You came from the overlord’s Palace?” she asked him.

Hanner had given the others present very little attention, but now he looked at the questioner and felt himself flush. She was a slender woman of slightly below average height,’ heavily made up. She wore a bright red tunic embroidered in red and gold, cut very low, and a darker red skirt that was slit up one side almost to her hip. Her long, full hair was fiery red as well-an extremely unusual color, though Hanner had heard it was more common in distant places like Tintallion and Meroa.

Her occupation was obvious, and Hanner was not sufficiently worldly to avoid reacting to it. He was not accustomed to encountering streetwalkers in the Wizards’ Quarter, or anywhere else he went regularly, for that matter. They tended to stay near the gates or docks or in Camptown, none of which he generally frequented.

“More or less,” he said hastily, trying to cover his embarrassment. “I was in Newmarket, actually, when the trouble started, and I came directly here.”

“It’s happening in Newmarket, too?” asked a man in gray homespun.

“In Newmarket and the Old City and Arena-everywhere I’ve looked,” Hanner replied.

“But you don’t know what’s happening at the Palace?” the streetwalker persisted.

“Not firsthand, no,” Hanner admitted.

“We thought it was just Camptown at first,” the man in homespun said. “But then we discovered it was here, too.”

“We thought it might be some sort of attack on the soldiers,” the redhead added. “Several of them apparently vanished right out of the camp, flying away, and it didn’t seem as if theywanted to. I wondered whether anything had happened to the overlord.”

That possibility had not occurred to Hanner. “I don’t know,” he said unhappily. “People were breaking into houses and shops in Newmarket, flying about screaming, and I thought that... well, someone said to deal with magic, find a magician, which made good sense, so I came here.”

“So did we,” the streetwalker said.

“Rudhira is a regular customer of mine,” Perréa added.

“She suggested we ask Mother Perréa what we should do,” the man in homespun said. “So about half a dozen of us came here together.”

Hanner did not see the half dozen described in this particular group; the conversation included only himself, Mother Perréa, the woman in red, the man in homespun, and two young men who had not yet spoken. Perréa, apparently reading his face, said, “When I couldn’t help, the others moved on.”

“Yorn came with me,” Rudhira said, pointing to the guardsman who was now standing by himself, looking lost. “And that man there; he said his name was Elken.” She pointed at a person in ill-fitting rags who was sitting against the wall of a shop, looking dazed; his hair and beard were so tangled and matted that they obscured most of his face, making it hard for Hanner to judge his age.

Hanner frowned, trying to think what he should do, what questions he should ask. The soldier’s yellow tunic caught his eye. “That guardsman,” Hanner said. “He’s in uniform. He was on duty when it began? Did he desert his post to come here or was he sent?” “I think he came on his own,” Rudhira said.

“He should have waited for orders from his captain. The guard should be trying to restore order.”

“I guess he panicked,” the man in homespun said.

“Guards aren’t supposed to panic,” Hanner replied.

“Guards aren’t supposed to be able to fly, either,” Rudhira retorted.

Hanner turned, startled. “He... what?”

“Well, not literally fly, in his case,” Perréa said. “At least, I haven’t seen him do it.”

“All right, not Yorn,” Rudhira said. “But some of the soldiersdid fly; most of the ones who could flew off and didn’t come back. That didn’t happen to Yorn, but that’s why he came here with me-he has the magic, too, but not very strong. He thought it might be a curse or a trap, so he came here for advice.”

“But he didn’t go mad?”

Rudhira put her hands on her hips. “Neither did I,” she said.

Hanner’s mouth opened, then snapped shut.

“Look,” Rudhira said. She raised her arms and floated gently upward, a foot or so into the air, then sank back to the ground. “Why did youthink I came?”

“Uh... to find out what was happening,” Hanner said, confused.

“Yes, exactly,” Rudhira agreed. “But why would I care, if it wasn’t happening tomet”

Hanner said, “I thought maybe you were robbed or attacked by one of these madmen.”

“I’d probably be dead if that had happened,” Rudhira said. “I passed at least two corpses on the way here.”

Hanner closed his eyes and swallowed. He suspected that he had passed at least one himself, but had refused to look closely enough to be sure.

Then Rudhira’s words registered.“Can you fight back?” he asked.

“Of course,” she answered. “I can... well, feel it, and make it stop...” She frowned. “I don’t have a good way to describe it.”

“Of course,” Hanner said. “You never did it before. You aren’t a magician.”

“Well, she wasn’t one until tonight,” Perréa said. “Now I’m not so sure.”

“You think this might bepermanent}” Hanner asked. That thought was just as astonishing as the discovery that not all the people affected had turned into rampaging monsters. “It might be,” Perréa said. “I told you we don’t know much about it. We’re just guessing. It seems a little bit like descriptions I’ve heard of something witches used to do sometimes for emergencies during the Great War, where several witches would lock their magic into a single person for some special job-that sort of magic did eventually get used up, and some of the contributing witches could die of exhaustion without ever getting out of their chairs if the war-locked person burned away too much of it, but the personusing the magic could keep on going without getting tired or feeling any strain right up until the last contributing witch died.”

“So do you think someone somewhere is supplying the magical power forthis war-locking?” Hanner asked. “Will it end when that source dies?”

Perréa turned up an empty palm. “Who knows? I told you, I’m guessing.”

“And while we’re guessing, people are dying,” Hanner said. “Things are being smashed and stolen and burned all over the city. We need todo something.” He looked at Rudhira. “Get Yorn, and anyone else who came with you who can use this magic. To deal with magic, find a magician, she said; well, it would seem the ordinary magicians can’t deal with this, but maybeyou can.” He took a deep breath, then said, “As a representative of Azrad, overlord of Ethshar of the Spices, I hereby require you to accompany me and obey me, and I pledge that service will be rewarded.”

Even as he spoke, Hanner had second thoughts. He always said the wrong thing, he had told Mavi as much a few hours ago. Had he just done it again?

But somebody did have to do something!

Rudhira looked at the embroidered silk on Hanner’s shoulders and the bay-leaf sigil on his breast. “He can do that?” she asked Perréa.

“He’s a lord of the city, so he has the authority, yes,” Perréa said, looking somewhat bemused. “I’d never have expected this of Lord Hanner, though. He’s taking a risk. If he misuses this power he can be beheaded for it-but that’s up to the overlord to decide, not you. For now, the law says you have to obey him.”

Hanner shuddered at the reminder of the possible consequences-but he was sure now he was doing the right thing, and that his uncle and old Azrad would approve. “Get Yorn and the others,” he told Rudhira. Then he raised his voice and announced to the entire street, “Any of you who can use this new magic, I hereby require you to accompany me and obey me, in the overlord’s name!”

The hum of conversation stopped, and half a hundred faces turned to look at him.

“Your services will be rewarded,” he said. “And disobedience will be punished.”

Though just how he would enforce that if these people could fly and throw things around without touching them, he had no idea.