Ethshar - Night Of Madness Part 36

He had done enough, and he had had enough. "Come on," he told Nerra, turning away from the wreckage. "Let's go upstairs."

Chapter Thirty-seven.

Manrin looked out a third-floor window at High Street. It had taken a quarter hour for the watchers to trickle back after Lord Faran had led his party off toward the Palace, but they had returned, and once again were flinging bricks and stones at the house.

None of these missiles ever struck the building; the warlocks remaining downstairs deflected them all. It seemed a rather pointless exercise, really, but that didn't stop the attackers.

No one would ever dare throw rocks at wizards that way, Manrin thought. Wizards hadrespect.

Warlocks, at least so far, clearly did not.

Lord Faran would have to change that.

Manrin considered that for a moment-what would it take to change it? What did wizards have that warlocks didn't?

Well, they had been around longer, of course. They often wore distinctive robes. And they had the Wizards' Guild, with its clear-cut rules. They were a familiar part of the World, while warlocks were still new and strange. Warlocks looked like ordinary people, but they weren't, and that scared people. They didn't know who the warlockswere.

That was something Lord Faran should fix, once he had taken over the city from Lord Azrad-as Manrin was sure he would do.

He should give the warlocks some sort of uniform and devise a set of rules, Manrin thought, and then send someone out to explain the rules to everyone. Make them consistent and familiar, that's what would help them fit in.

And convince those people out front that no, the warlocks hadnot stolen their family and friends.

Lord Faran hadn't done any of that yet. He had gathered all the warlocks together, which was good, since there was strength in numbers, and he had given them some leadership and a little basic organization, sorting out who could do what, but he had left them a motley, ill-a.s.sorted bunch and kept them hidden away in this mansion, and he hadn't set out solid rules. He hadn't eventried to talk to the rock-throwers about their missing loved ones. Manrin decided he would make some suggestions when he next saw Lord Faran.

Then he noticed, out in the street, that the watchers were looking east along High Street rather than at the house. He leaned forward and peered off to the left.

Running figures were approaching-andflying figures, as well. Warlocks, returning from the Palace!

Manrin started to smile, thinking that this meant the conquest was already secured, but then he stopped.

Why were theyrunning?

"Oh, no," he said.

He didn't see little Rudhira's distinctive green skirt and red hair, or Varrin's multicolored linen tunic, or Lord Faran's silks, and he wasn't sure what that meant, but he didn't think it was a good sign.

Then the vanguard of the returning warlocks neared the line of watchers, and the watchers were abruptly flung back, tumbling down the street as if swept by a gigantic hand, clearing the area in front of the house.

The returning warlocks would be in the house in seconds, and Manrin decided he wanted to be there, to hear what had happened. He turned and headed for the stairs.

A moment later he trudged panting down the steps-he was really too old for all this climbing and wished that people in Eth-shar of the Spices didn't build such tall houses. In Ethshar of the Sands only a handful of structures had more than two floors-the Palace, the Great Lighthouse, Grandgate-because the ground wasn't stable enough to support anything higher without either magic or amazing luck. A four-story house was ostentatious even here; back home it would have been completely ridiculous.

By the time he was midway down the second flight the ground floor was swarming with frightened people, awash in a babble of voices.

One of them was Ulpen, who looked up the stairs and called, "Master!"

Manrin stopped.

Other warlocks heard Ulpen call out and looked up the stairs at Manrin. The old wizard could hear them muttering to one another.

"... he's a wizard, he knows about magic ..."

"... can talk to the Guild ..."

"... used to running things ..."

"... has experience..."

"Master," Ulpen said loudly, "Lord Faran is dead. Will you lead us now?"

Manrin frowned. The lad was being ridiculous. And Lord Faran wasdead} Manrin had not expected that. He had not thought anything would stop Lord Faran, certainly nothingshort of an all-out a.s.sault by the Wizards' Guild.

"What happened?" he asked. "How did he die?"

"A wizard turned him to stone," Kirsha called up to him.

"But he killed the wizard, too," someone added.

Then the Guildhad intervened. That was bad. Manrin had hoped that the Guild might indeed come to the aid of their fellow magicians in the end.

"We need a leader, Master," Ulpen said.

Manrin snorted derisively. "I'm an old man, a wizard," he said. "I'm not a lord. I'm not even from this city."

"We needsomeone, Master. You were a Guildmaster, even if you weren't a lord, and isn't that more appropriate for a group of magicians?"

"It sounds to me as ifyou're taking charge, Ulpen!" Manrin triedto make plain in his tone and expression that he thought this was agood thing. If someone was going to face the Guild's wrath, Manrin would be happy to have it be someone other than himself. And the Guild might well take pity on a mere apprentice.

"Me?" Ulpen gasped, a hand on his chest. "I'm only sixteen!"

"And I'm a hundred and eleven, which is too old to be running around fighting soldiers."

"We'll fightfor you!" Othisen shouted. There was a ragged chorus of agreement.

Manrin sighed. It was clear he wasn't going to get out of this easily-and really, if someone was going to have to negotiate with the Guild, he had to admit he was more qualified than anyone else in this mad a.s.sortment.

But he still didn't want the honor. "Is there no one else more suitable?" he said. "What about that other young lord, Lord Han-ner?"

"He's not even a warlock," Ulpen said.

"And he didn't come back with us," Kirsha added. "He stayed in the Palace with his sister."

"He did?" This was from Lady Alris, on the fringe of the crowd. She had been sitting in the parlor when the others had returned from the Palace, and now she was standing in the doorway, listening.

Several voices replied, and the gathering dissolved into noisy chaos for a moment. Manrin, looking down from above, noticed young Sheila, the former apprentice witch, standing in one corner, clearly trying to say something, but being ignored as the others all shouted at one another. She appeared to be on the verge of tears.

That was too much. He could never stand the sight of weeping children, and Sheila reminded him of his granddaughter Pianette. "Silence!" he bellowed, hands raised, augmenting his voice with warlockry as Rudhira had taught him.

Silence fell. A dozen worried faces looked up at him.

"It would seem Iam your new leader, whether I like it or not," Manrin said. "Well, if I am to lead you, I need to know who you all are, what you can do, and what has happened so far-as you may have noticed, I have spent much of my time upstairs, using what wizardry I still have to study our situation. I have missed details of events down here, even while I learned things the rest of you don't know. I do have some ideas-I had intended to speak to Lord Faran about them upon his return, but it appears that if he is indeed dead, I will have to act on them myself. First, though, I need to know just what has really happened, to Lord Faran and to the rest of you." He pointed at Ulpen. "I'll hear you one at a time, starting with my apprentice."

For the next two hours Manrin questioned the other warlocks. He learned about the Calling, and how it had taken Rudhira and Varrin; he learned about Lord Faran's ghastly death at the hands of the Wizards'

Guild. He took a roll call, learning who was still in the group and who had fled, going home or hiding elsewhere, and he sorted the warlocks out by their level of power, as Faran had.

When that was done he thought he had a fairly good understanding of the situation-and he didn't like it much. Varrin had done serious damage to the Palace, and Faran had slain a high-ranking member of the Wizards' Guild-executions were never left to anyone of low rank. The party as a whole had further antagonized the entire city by their march through the streets.

But it might not be too late to make amends, Manrin thought. Lord Faran's death, while a tragic loss, was also an opportunity. Their dead leader could be made a convenient target for the city's anger and mistrust. The warlocks could blame Lord Faran for all the harm they had done, absolving the survivors of any responsibility.

But, Manrin was convinced, they had to present themselves as real magicians, a lawful part of the city, not a mysterious, lawless, alien force.

He started to explain this to his new followers, but had not gotten very far before Kirsha demanded, "How?"

Manrin stopped. "How what?" he asked.

"How can we present ourselves as normal magicians? We're not-we're from all over the city, from a dozen different backgrounds, not people who served a proper apprenticeship to learn a trade. Just look at us!"

"You have a point," Manrin said, "and I've thought about it. I think we need to do something to make ourselves look more like a coherent group. Perhaps if we all dyed our clothes to one color? Red might be nice. Is that man Bern around? He might be able to help ..."

"He's in the kitchens somewhere," Sheila called. "I'll go find him."

"We can't dye all our clothes red," Desset said. "You can't dye dark colors red; the old color will show through. We'd need to get all new clothes."

"We could dye everything black," Othisen suggested. "Black will cover anything." "Then we'd look like demonologists," Alladia said.

"Is that bad?" Desset asked. "Everyone knows demonologists are magicians, and they may not like them, but n.o.body throws bricks at their windows."

"Exactly!" Manrin said. "Black it is, then-from now on, warlocks wear black."

"But they'll think we're all demonologists!" Alladia protested.

"Better that than thinking we're warlocks, I'd say," Yorn commented.

"Black," Manrin said. "You chose me to lead you, and as your leader, I tell you to wear black-if Bern can get us the dye."

Desset nodded. "Everyone looks good in black, too."

Manrin didn't think everyone present agreed with that, but he wasn't about to let his followers argue about trivia. "And we'll need to advertise," he said. "Ordinary magicians are useful, they earn their living from their magic. Well, we can all do things that people will pay for-we can heal wounds as well as anyone, we can open locks, we can break things or repair things. We need to let everyone know that.

Right now, thanks to those of us who did things we shouldn't have on the Night of Madness, they think of us as thieves and bullies, not honest citizens, and we need to fix that. Some of us should volunteer to help rebuild the shops and houses that got smashed on the Night of Madness. And people think we kidnapped all those people who disappeared out of their beds-we need to convince them we didn't."

"How do we dothat?" Yorn called. "What are we going to say?"

"We'll just tell them the truth," Manrin said. "Eventually maybe it will sink in."

"But how can we advertise?" Kirsha asked. "We can't just hang out a signboard!"

"Not here, no," Manrin agreed. "We'll need to rely on word of mouth. Those of us who have friends and family should let them know. The word will spread."

"Do you really think anyone will hire us?" Kirsha asked.

Before Manrin could reply, Zarek asked, "Can we still stay here? If Lord Faran is dead, who owns this house?"

Manrin had been about to answer Kirsha, but now he stopped dead, mouth open.

"I don't know," he said at last. "Did Lord Faran have any children? Or perhaps Lord Hanner's parents?"

"Our parents are both dead," Lady Alris said from the parlor door. "If Uncle Faran ever acknowledged any children, I don't know about it. I think Hanner and Nerra and I were his closest kin."

"Thank you, Lady Alris," Manrin said. "Then unless there's a settlement we don't know about, Lord Hanner would now own the estate, with an obligation to provide for his sisters."

"Is Bern here?" Alris asked. "He should know." "Here he is," Sheila called, leading Bern by the hand through the crowd at the dining-hall door.

"Good!" Manrin said. "Bern, Lady Alris, if the three of us could speak somewhere ..." When neither of them protested, Manrin smiled and said, "Good! All of you, we have seen that confrontation with the overlord and his guards is not going to get us anywhere. Lord Faran meant well, and he did a good thing gathering us here and teaching us what we are, but trying to conquer the city is not for us. What we need to do is make a place for ourselves, a place that the rest of the city will accept. While I speak with Lady Alris and Bern, I want the rest of you to think about what we can do to fit in, to make ourselves useful and welcome. For now, it appears we are still welcome here-Lord Hanner has not come and ordered us to leave-but we have to consider the possibility that we will need to leave and go elsewhere. If you have any suggestions or questions, find me later and we'll discuss them."

With that, he beckoned to Alris and Bern, then turned and headed back up the stairs.

The two followed him up to a study on the third floor, where they settled in for a long discussion of household affairs and Lord Faran's family history.

The news, Manrin thought, was mixed. It did indeed appear that Lord Faran had no family except his sister's children, and so far as anyone knew none of his many women could claim to carry his child or even to have married him. If Lord Manner was Faran's heir that was good-an actual warlock would have been better, but Lord Manner had certainly appeared sympathetic enough.

The bad news came from Bern. The household supplies were running low. He could get to market only when one of the more powerful warlocks got him safely past the thugs in the street. And worst of all, the household funds were exhausted-he was operating on credit. Lord Faran's credit had already become questionable, and when word got out that he was dead it would be cut off completely.

The warlocks needed to find another source of income immediately; that need was rather more urgent than Manrin had realized.

Of course, he had his own money, back in Ethshar of the Sands, and some of the other warlocks presumably had full purses, but even so, they really needed to start earning.

There were half a dozen bloodstones in one of the hundreds of drawers of wizard's supplies that Lord Faran had collected, and those could be enchanted with the Spell of Sustenance so that whoever carried them would need no food or drink, but even though many of the warlocks who had accompanied Lord Faran on the march to the Palace had not returned, there were far more than half a dozen people in the house. Besides, the bloodstone spell was not healthy if used for too long. A sixnight or two would be no problem, but if the days turned into months . . .

It was hard to believe how much his life had changed in just three days. He had been a respected and wealthy wizard, a Guildmaster, with friends and family, and now he was an outlaw, a warlock, worrying about paying for his next meal.

Manrin shook his head at the thought. He really was too old for this sort of thing.

After several minutes of conversation Bern insisted on leaving to prepare supper-he had been starting on that when Sheila had fetched him from the kitchens. That left Manrin and Alris alone in the study. Manrin tried to question Alris about her uncle's plans and what her brother might do, but Alris was hardly br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with information or enthusiasm. And after all, why should she be? She wasn't a warlock, just an ordinary girl, and her uncle had just died, which had to be a blow even though she hadn't appeared to like him much. She probably just wanted to go home to the Palace, to see her sibs and resume her former life.

All the same, Manrin kept her there talking until Sheila came upstairs to call them to supper.

At the meal Alris sat in sullen silence while the warlocks talked about what they should do. She should be taken home to the Palace at the first opportunity, Manrin decided as he pretended to listen to Othisen's schemes for using warlockry on his father's farm.

And Othisen should go home, as well, he thought.