Ethshar - Night Of Madness Part 21

"Mother, she's your own daughter!" Aniara said.

"Not anymore," her mother said. "You heard the priest-she's not even human anymore! She's athing that used to be my daughter."

"I didn't say ..." the theurgist began.

"Human or not, she might go berserk at any time," the old woman said. "Did any of you hear about the house in Seacorner where Varrin the Weaver smashed the entire top floor in an instant? He almost crushed his own wife!"

The other women looked at one another.

"Please, Mother, this is her home," Aniara said. "Where else would she go?"

Mavi immediately knew what would happen then, and sure enough, Thetta and Oria turned to look at her. Pancha's mother pointed at her, and Aniara turned as well.

The puzzled theurgist also looked at Mavi, simply because everyone else did.

"All right," Mavi said. "I can take her there." That this would not only be a kindness to Pancha but would give her another chance to see Lord Hanner did not escape her.

"May I ask where?" the theurgist said.

"You explain," Aniara said, heading for the stairs. "I'll go help Pancha pack."

As Tanna the Thief worked the crowd in the plaza, cutting purses from people's belts and slipping them into her own shoulder bag, she was still trying to decide who she should tell about Elken-if anyone. Her original intention in coming here had been to warn the magistrates about the warlocks, but it had been instantly clear that they already knew. The guards in front of the Palace, the shouting crowds, made it plain thateveryone knew about the warlocks.

No one was going to pay her for the information.

She wished she hadn't taken a day to bury Elken, clean herself up, steal new clothes, and get up her nerve-if she had arrived yesterday she might still have gotten a couple of bits for her report.

Of course, she was doing fairly well at her customary trade, certainly taking more than a few copper bits. The crowd was large and angry, which meant it was also more careless than usual, and she had gotten half a dozen purses. Still, it was theprinciple of the thing-she had something thatought to be worth money, and she wasn't able to collect.

Of course, she told herself, in a way it was paying off. Ordinarily she would never have comehere, right in front of the Palace, where any number of guards and magicians might be watching, and she would never have found this crowd of unsuspecting prospective victims.

Just then she was distracted as someone shouted,"Hai! My purse!"

Tanna turned to see who spoke, ready to flee if anyone pointed her out as the culprit. Perhaps these people hadn't been quite so unsuspecting as she thought.

An elderly man was staring down at the severed cords dangling from his belt; then he raised his head and looked around at the crowd.

"Who did that?"he bellowed. "Did anyone see who took my purse?"

Suddenly inspired, Tanna called, "The warlocks!"

The elderly man's head snapped around, and he stared directly at her.

"It vanished," Tanna said. "I saw it! It just disappeared. It must be the warlocks!"

"The warlocks?" the old man said. "First they took my son, and now they take my purse?" He turned to look at the guards on the north side of the square. "Blast it, it's time something wasdone about this!"

"You tell them, sir!" Tanna said as she slipped behind a tall man.

A moment later she had worked her way well away from the angry old man, who was arguing with the nearest soldier. It was time to go, she decided. She had tried to do her civic duty by reporting Elken's attempt to take over the Hundred-Foot Field, and she had gathered a few fat purses for her efforts, and that was enough; it was time to go, before things got really ugly.

Ten minutes later she was trotting downArena Street , trying to ignore the shouting behind her.

Kennan was absolutely furious. The guards had referred him to their captain, who had stolidly listened to his story, then told him to go away.

"But they stole my purse!" he shouted.

"Sir, I doubt it was a warlock who stole your purse," the captain said. "It looks to me like the work of an ordinary cutpurse."

"But that girlsaw it!"

"More likely she was the one who took it."

"Captain, I have been robbed of my child and my money by these people, and Idemand that you do something about it!"

"The overlord is consulting his advisors and magicians as to what action to take."

"What action to take? Goget them, and demand they return what they've taken!" Kennan said. "They're all right there in that big black stone house on High Street, at the corner of Coronet!"

"Sir, I doubt thatall the warlocks are there," the captain said dryly.

"Well,some of them are!" Kennan raged. "Lord Faran went there, and that fat man, and that redheaded wh.o.r.e ..."

"Sir, I have my orders," the captain said. "I am to guard the plaza and the Palace. Unless you have real proof that those particular warlocks took your purse or your son, I am not going to arrest them. If you really do have a witness, I suggest you bring her here to testify."

Kennan glowered at the soldier, then turned to look for the thin, long-haired girl in the brown tunic.

He couldn't see her anywhere.

He fumed silently for a moment, then growled. "I've had enough of this," he said. He stamped away from the captain.

"Excuse me," someone said.

Kennan turned to see a stocky man in a tan tunic. "Yes?"

"Did I hear you say that you know where the warlocks live?"

"Yes," Kennan said. "What of it?"

"They took my brother," the stocky man said. "Can you show me where this place is?" Kennan scanned the crowd again, but could not see the girl anywhere.

It wasn't as if he were accomplishing anything here, he told himself.

"Come on," he said. "We'll go there together. At the very least we can keep an eye on the place."

Chapter Twenty-two.

Manrin the Mage, Guildmaster of Ethshar of the Sands, charged with overseeing and representing all those wizards who dwelt outside the city walls but within two days' travel, was not happy at all. He was even less happy than his colleague Ithinia in Ethshar of the Spices, forty leagues to the east, had been the afternoon before when she heard from Lord Faran.

The Night of Madness, as it was now referred to, had initially hit Ethshar of the Sands roughly as hard as it had hit Ethshar of the Spices; hundreds of people had vanished, dozens had been killed, shops and homes had been looted and burned. However, unlike the disturbances in its sister city, the rioting in Ethshar of the Sands had lasted until dawn. No party of well-intentioned warlocks had roamed the streets, suppressing their wilder compatriots; Ederd IV had not called out the guard to defend his palace as his brother-in-law Azrad VI had, but had instead dispersed them through the streets, which had in many cases only inflamed the situation.

That, however, was not the major reason why Manrin was even less cheerful than Ithinia.

Lord Ederd's people were now ranging up and downWizard Street , questioning every magician they could find, hoping to find an explanation for the outburst of magic. Ederd himself was in conference with several well-respected magicians of various sorts at the Palace, while Ederd's wife, Zarrea of the Spices, was roaming the city organizing rebuilding efforts, sometimes conscripting magicians into service.

Manrin had been questioned at considerable length in his home by Lord Kalthon, son of the Minister of Justice, which had not been pleasant. The general impression Manrin had received was that the people of the city did not trustany magicians right now.

That was not the major reason why Manrin was unhappy, either.

Manrin's own daughter Ferris was among the missing; she had not been seen since the moment the screaming began. Even that, though, was not whatmost upset him, though it was a close second. Ferris was a grown woman, aging but still well able to take care of herself, and Manrin told himself that she was probably safely in hiding, waiting for things to return to normal. Even if she was truly among the vanished, n.o.body knew what had become of them; they might all be alive and well somewhere.

And Manrin's other three children, their spouses, his dozen grandchildren, and his half-dozen great-grandchildren were all unharmed and safe in their homes. He was not concerned about any of them.

What worried Manrin most was his magic. He had tried to perform several different spells in the past day or so, and far too many of them had not worked. That the Spell of the Revealed Power had yielded nothing when applied to the debris in the street was not particularly alarming-that was a tricky ninth-order spell, and the debris might simply not have carried any traces that the spell recognized. That the Spell of Omniscient Vision had failed, though, meant something was wrong. That was an easy third-order incantation-he had learned that as anapprentice, almost a hundred years ago, and he hadn't had any problem with it since he was a journeyman! He was a Guildmaster now; how could he have made a mess of something so trivial? The ingredients were basic. He knew the dagger and incense were exactly what they should be; could the stone have somehow been exposed to sunlight, destroying its virtue?

His magic wasn'ttotally gone-he had tested himself with a few quick little first-order spells that had all worked properly- but it had become completely unreliable for anything complex enough to be useful.

And then there were things that had moved about his workshop, apparently by themselves-the chair that had slid into place, his Book of Spells leaping to his hand, and a handful of other incidents. All these movements had been harmless or even beneficial, but they shouldn't have happened. Had he left some spell unfinished, some magical being unrestrained? Could the Aerial Servitor he'd conjured up a sixnight before still be lingering, trying to be helpful? He had set it the required three tasks, and it had performed all three-it should have been dismissed thereafter.

These failures and movements were worrisome. Anytime magic misbehaved there was good cause for concern; the forces involved could be catastrophically powerful.

Was age starting to catch up with him again? It had been a long time since his youth spell; he might well be due for another. He could scarcely expect to perform anything that difficult for himself under the circ.u.mstances, though, and hiring another wizard to do it would be troublesome and expensive. He almost wished he had gone foreternal youth the first time, rather than mere rejuvenation.

Or it might not have anything to do with age. Could there be any connection between his own problems and the mysterious magical power that had so disrupted the city's life?

Well, he was a wizard; when he had a question, no matter what it was, he could get an answer-if the spell worked. And if it didn't, he wasn't really much of a wizard.

He had gathered the necessary ingredients-salt, c.o.c.k's blood, his athame, and a cake of the appropriate incense-and was working out the exact phrasing of the question he intended to address with Fendel's Divination, a.s.suming he could indeed get the Divination to work, when someone knocked on his workshop door.

Manrin sighed and put down his athame. "Yes?" he called.

The door opened and his servant Derneth peered in. "Master? You have visitors." "Lord Kalthon? Or Lady Zarrea?"

"No, Master. A wizard by the name of Abdaran the White, and his apprentice, Ulpen ofNorth Herris ."

Manrin frowned. "Abdaran? Oh, yes. I know him. He has an apprentice?"

"Apparently, Master."

"Send them in."

Derneth hesitated-ordinarily, Manrin met visitors in one of the parlors. Still, the order was clear enough.

"Yes, Master," he said, closing the door.

Manrin looked at his question again, debating whether "explain" or "describe" would be the better verb-or whether either of them would transform the question to a request, which the Divination would not handle properly. Perhaps "What is the nature of..."

The door opened again and two wizards stepped in-a man who appeared to be perhaps half a century in age, with snow-white hair, and a black-haired lad of sixteen or so, both in formal robes. Abdaran wore deep red, while the boy-presumably Ulpen-wore apprentice gray.

"Guildmaster," the older man said with a bow.

"Abdaran," Manrin said, pushing aside the paper. "What brings you to Ethshar?"

Abdaran smiled wryly. "My feet, actually," he said. "I had no transportation spells on hand, and the matter seemed urgent. May we sit down?"

"If you can find somewhere to sit, by all means," Manrin said, gesturing broadly. "What was it that seemed urgent?"

Abdaran looked significantly at a chair, and Ulpen hurriedly cleared several books and a neatly tied bundle of small bones off it, so that his master could sit. When Abdaran had settled comfortably, he said, "My apprentice, Ulpen, has developed some curious new abilities."

Ulpen was busily clearing jars from another chair-there were only three chairs, in addition to Manrin's own stool, and a great many things were stacked on them-and didn't see Manrin look questioningly at him.

"What sort of abilities?" Manrin asked.

"Primarily, the ability to move physical objects by the power of thought alone," Abdaran replied.

"Warlockry," Manrin said. He looked at Ulpen. "But surely, he has his athame?"

"Of course he does, Guildmaster," Abdaran said. "Right there on his belt. I'm afraid I don't see the relevance, however, nor do I recognize the word 'warlockry.' We heard it mentioned by the guards in Grandgate, but we don't know the term."

Ulpen finally got the chair cleared and sat down, turning to face his elders expectantly. Manrin stared at the two in surprise. "G.o.ds!" he said. "Where have you two been?"

"North Herris," Abdaran said sharply. "A village some eight leagues northeast of here, as you certainly ought to know."

"Master," Ulpen whispered loudly, "he's aGuildmaster!"

Manrin sighed. "No, he's right, boy," he said. "I'm sorry, it's been so much in evidence here that... well, obviously you somehow missed it."

"Missed what?" Abdaran said, keeping his tone more civil this time.

"The Night of Madness," Manrin said. "That's what people are calling it. The night before last-late on the fourth day of Sum-merheat, and into the morning of the fifth."

Abdaran looked at him expectantly, and Manrin continued, "Somewhere after sunset, but still a little beforemidnight on that night,something happened. We still don't know what; attempts at divination have been unsuccessful, apparently blocked by somevery powerful, and completely unfamiliar, magic.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who were sleeping were awakened by intense nightmares; some people who were awake report an odd sensation, as if hit by something invisible. Many of both groups began screaming, though they often couldn't explain why, and many of them panicked. Almost everyone who screamed, and some who did not, discovered that like your apprentice here they could now move objects about without touching them. And those who panicked went rampaging through their homes and the streets, using their new power to smash anything in their way and s.n.a.t.c.h whatever caught their fancy.

Some who hadn't panicked did the same, simply because the opportunity was there and they could see others running wild in this fashion. Dozens of people were killed, shops and houses were smashed or burned-it wasvery bad, and you're lucky to have missed it."

Ulpen's face had gone pale, and Abdaran frowned deeply.