Ethshar - Night Of Madness Part 25

Rudhira was the obvious choice to ask for a.s.sistance; Hanner knew her, trusted her to keep control, and knew her warlock abilities were among the most powerful of anyone present. "Rudhira," Hanner whispered, beckoning. "Come here-my uncle may need some help."

Rudhira came up behind Hanner-literally up; she lifted herself off the floor so that she could see past the men in the doorway, and hung several inches off the floor as she peered out at the guards. "Don't kill them," Hanner said. "They're just following orders."

Rudhira nodded.

Naral was clearly thinking it over, but at last he called, "Lord Faran, please reconsider. I'm just carrying out the overlord's commands. Maybe you can stopme, but you can't stop the entire city!"

"I really doubt we'll have to," Faran said with a smile. "But if we do-you know, I'm not sure we can't.

We don't know just what warlockry can do. We're only just starting to learn. Are yousure we can't stop the entire city?"

Naral sighed.

"I have my orders," he said. "Now, will you come peacefully?"

"I won't come at all," Faran said. He straightened up and stepped back, inside the threshold.

He couldn't close the door; Manrin was in the way, standing with his back to the door handle. The wizard had been staring out at the soldiers and took a moment to realize that Faran was glaring at him, and another moment to realize why. He said, "Oh," then started to move aside.

By then it was too late-Naral was leading a charge, the entire score of guardsmen rushing toward the gate, yelling at the top of their lungs. The watching crowd was enthusiastically cheering them on.

Faran and Manrin were distracted, Hanner had no idea what to do, but it didn't matter. Rudhira waved a hand, and the soldiers were swept off their feet, tumbling backward as if a huge wave had struck them head-on, spears and swords clattering as they fell to the ground.

The yelling stopped abruptly, the cheering crowd fell suddenly silent, and for a moment the rattle and thudding of the soldiers, their weapons, and their armor hitting the ground were clearly audible.

Then the street was completely still for several seconds, the only sound the distant buzz of the rest of the city going about its business.

Faran and Manrin and Hanner stared out at the sprawled guardsmen; some of the soldiers tentatively moved to sit up while others lay still, fearing that any motion might provoke another attack.

"Go away!" Rudhira shouted over the heads of the three men, her voice seeming impossibly loud to Hanner. "We're magicians, and we demand the respect due to magicians! You can't just run in here with your swords and spears as if we were a bunch of drunken rowdies smashing up a tavern!"

Hanner smothered a sudden urge to laugh hysterically. He was quite sure that Rudhira was not speaking theoretically, that she had seen guardsmen deal with rowdies smashing up taverns at least once before.

Captain Naral got carefully to his feet, brushed himself off, picked up his sword, brushedthat off, then turned and looked over his men. Most of them were sitting up now; a few had even retrieved weapons.

He turned back toward the doorway.

"Lord Faran," he said. "Captain Naral," Faran acknowledged.

"It appears you intend to defy the overlord's orders, and that we can't stop you."

"Captain, we could kill the lot of you quite easily. Please don't force us to demonstrate."

Naral turned up a palm. "I won't," he said. "But I will have to report back to Lord Azrad, and he may try something more drastic next time."

"I would be happy to negotiate with the overlord's representative; I understand that there are serious matters at stake here, and I'm eager for a peaceful resolution."

"Of course." Naral hesitated, then added, "Leaving the city would be peaceful."

"I'm afraid I'm not eager for thatparticular peaceful resolution," Faran said. "I hope we can find another."

"I hope so, my lord," Naral said. Then he turned and bellowed at his men, "All right, you, up on your feet! Let's see some order here!"

Hanner watched silently at Faran's side as the soldiers got upright and organized, and started to march off, with Naral at the rear.

"Wait a minute!" the persistent old man in the street shouted. He no longer looked satisfied; he looked distraught. "You can't give up! Get them! Arrest them! My son disappeared two nights ago, and they're responsible!"

"We arenot" Hanner shouted back.

Captain Naral pointedly ignored the exchange as he and his men marched away.

Hanner watched them go and kept an eye on the civilians in the street as well as the departing guardsmen; the expressions he saw there were mostly sullen and angry, though that one man appeared truly outraged.

The warlocks had driven off the overlord's men and avoided exile for the moment, but it was plain to Hanner that they hadn't made any friends.

"Thank you, Rudhira," Faran said as he gently pushed Hanner aside and finally managed to close the door. "That was well timed and neatly done."

Rudhira smiled and curtsied-a flouncing little-girl curtsy, not the subtler, more graceful dip of a n.o.blewoman. Hanner supposed it was something she'd learned to please her customers, since ordinary folk hardly ever bothered with such formalities.

"Uncle," Hanner said, "they'll be back with magicians."

"I know," Faran said. "I hope that without me there to insist on speed that they won't be quick about it-you know how lazy Azrad and Ildirin and the rest are."

"But if Lord Azrad's angry ..." "Yes. Then he wants it over as quickly as possible." He turned to Manrin. "What wizardry can you still perform?"

Manrin snorted. "Not much. Even if I could rely on it, where would I get the ingredients for anything more potent than Fel-shen's First Hypnotic?"

"Upstairs," Faran replied. "I should have everything you need."

Manrin stared at him silently for a moment.

"Oh," he said at last.

Hanner listened but said nothing more just yet. He was beginning to see just how completely his uncle was cutting himself off. He was defying the overlordand the Wizards' Guild, disobeying the city guard, and openly admitting that he had studied forbidden magic. There could be no possible return for Lord Faran-either he would triumph as something new, as a master warlock no longer bound by the old rules, or he would almost certainly die, as a traitor and rogue magician.

Hanner just hoped that if Faran lost he wouldn't take the entire family down with him. The Hegemony of Ethshar had never believed in punishing the family of a criminal for his crimes, but Uncle Faran was a special case-the city's second-highest official, committing the highest of crimes.

And Hanner and Alris were here, helping him.

More than ever Hanner wished he were safely home with Nerra in their palace apartment, and that he wasn't a warlock.

"Wizardly ingredients are stored in the rooms on the west side of the third floor," Faran said. "I think you'll find everything properly catalogued; the index is in the bound volumes in the room where we spoke earlier." His full attention was apparently focused on Manrin, but Hanner knew his uncle well enough to be sure that he knew other people were listening. Rudhira and Ulpen and half a dozen other warlocks were in fact listening intently.

Faran was deliberately letting them know about his dabbling in magic, and that Manrin, a wizard, was on their side-presumably to hearten them in the face of the knowledge that the overlord knew where they were and wanted them gone. Knowing that they had resources beyond their own mysterious and untrained magic ...

Untrained. Hanner thought about that for a moment.

"Uncle," he said as Manrin and Ulpen started toward the stairs, and Faran turned to follow them.

Faran turned back to his nephew. "Yes?"

"I think that you had best leave the wizardry to the wizards- but if you're expecting a confrontation, shouldn't you find out just what other resources we have?"

"We have a houseful of warlocks," Faran said.

"Yes, but shouldn't you find outhow many warlocks, and what they can do? We really don't know whatthey're capable of." He waved at Rudhira. "They can'tall stop a dozen guardsmen in their tracks the way she can-but some of them may be able to do other things."

Faran looked at Hanner, then around at the cl.u.s.tered warlocks listening in, then wistfully at Manrin and Ulpen as they mounted the stairs.

"You're right," he said. "We should do that. Better an army than a mob, eh?" He gestured and called, "All right, everyone! Into the dining hall, so we can see just who we have here."

As the crowd began to move in the indicated direction someone knocked on the door, the rapping barely audible over the shuffling feet. Hanner looked at Faran.

They could both hear shouting out in the street, but it was not close to the door.

Faran looked at Rudhira, who brushed her hair back from her face and said, "I'm ready."

Hanner bit his lower lip. Faran and Rudhira obviously thought there might be another enemy out there, but Hanner thought it far more likely it was either Bern, his hands too full of groceries to work the latch, or another warlock arriving.

But there were those people who hung around, watching. It was probably just as well to have Rudhira ready to use her war-lockry to defend the house.

Faran nodded, and Hanner opened the door.

The shouting was suddenly louder, and for the first time Hanner made out words.

"Where's my husband? What did you warlocks do with him?" a woman was shrieking.

She was not at the door, though, nor anywhere near it. The shouters were all outside the fence, on the street. The only personinside the fence was a black-haired girl of perhaps thirteen or fourteen, wearing a drab grey dress. She stood in the dooryard just outside, her knuckles raised to knock again.

Rudhira made a derisive little snort and turned away.

Hanner was annoyed by this rudeness and determined to make up for it. "Good afternoon to you," he said. "I'm Lord Hanner; may I help you?"

"I'm Sheila the Apprentice," the girl said. "Are you ... are warlocks welcome here?"

"Yes, indeed," Hanner said, swinging the door wide. "Come in!"

"Thank you," Sheila said. She stepped inside, then stopped dead, staring at the lush furnishings and the motley collection of people marching through the hallway into the dining hall.

"Apprenticed to what trade?" Hanner asked politely as he closed the door, to distract her and put her at ease.

"Witch," she said.

Uncle Faran, who had been ignoring the girl as he ushered his other guests into the dining room,suddenly turned to stare at her.

Hanner smiled.

"Come right this way," he said as he led her past Uncle Faran to the head of the table.

Chapter Twenty-six.

I was standing out there for hours, trying to get up my nerve," Sheila explained quietly to Manner as Lord Faran tried to get everyone lined up neatly. Faran had decided to leave her to his nephew for the moment; she spoke so softly that it took an effort to carry on a conversation, especially over the background noise the crowd of warlocks made, and he had other matters to attend to. "When I saw you send the soldiers away, I decided maybe youcan protect me."

"Protect you from what?"

"Everything," the girl said, waving a hand vaguely. "I mean, I'm sure it's bad enough for anyone, being a warlock, but being a witchand a warlock ... well, that's against the Wizards' Guild law, isn't it? My master thought so. He thought it might be against Sisterhood rules, as well."

"I don't think the Sisterhood could possibly have rules about warlocks yet," Hanner said. He knew little about the loose organization of female witches, but from what little he did know, he couldn't believe they were sufficiently organized to have made such a rule in just two days. "Besides, you don't need to join the Sisterhood if you don't want to."

"But... well, don't their rules apply to everyone, the way Wizards' Guild rules do?"

"No, no," Hanner said. "In order to be a wizard you have to join the Guild, and they kill anyone who breaks their rules about wizardry, but the Sisterhood isn't like that at all. I'm not even sure theyhave rules, and if they do-well, they don't apply to anyone but members. Besides, the Sisterhood doesn't kill anyone, so far as I've ever heard. It's more a social group than a guild."

"The Brotherhood has rules," Sheila said doubtfully. "My master told me some of them. He used to be a member."

"But he's not a member now?"

"No, he left. They didn't like him taking a female apprentice." "And they didn't kill him, did they?"

It was like watching a cloud blow away from the sun to see her face as this sank in.

"No," she said.

Then the cloud returned. "But the Wizards' Guild still doesn't allow mixing magic."

"And the overlord doesn't want warlocks in the city at all," Hanner agreed. "But we're here to fight that."

Sheila nodded, but her expression remained worried and uncertain.

"So," Hanner said, hoping to cheer her-and himself-up, "who's your master? Does he know you're here?"

"Kelder of Crookwall," she said. "I don't think he knows where I am-and I don't think he cares." She blinked rapidly, her mouth working, and Hanner realized she was on the verge of tears. "He threw me out."

"But he can't do that!" Hanner said. "A master is responsible for his apprentice!"

Sheila snuffled and wiped her nose with her sleeve, then dabbed at one eye. "He did, though," she said.

"He said I wasn't a witch anymore, and never could be."

"Because you're a warlock?"

She nodded silently.