Night of Madness (24 page)

The others quickly agreed, and half an hour later the three of them were in Aniara's parlor, talking to Aniara and her mother, pretending not to listen to the chanting faintly audible from upstairs.

“I hope it works,” Aniara said, looking up the stairs.

“It's not really so horrible, being a warlock,” Mavi said. “Some of the people at Lord Faran's house seemed almost proud of it. And it must be handy sometimes, being able to do magic like that.”

Aniara shuddered. “It's
creepy,
” she said. “What if she goes mad, like those others, and starts breaking things? Or what if people start disappearing around her? What if…”

Just then the daylight seemed almost to flicker, and Mavi and the others felt a sudden pressure.

Mavi swallowed. “I think the theurgist's invocation worked,” she said. The notion that there was an actual god—or at least a partial manifestation of one—in Pancha's room upstairs made her at least as nervous as the houseful of warlocks had.

“I wonder which god he was summoning?” Oria asked, glancing at the stairs.

“I remember that when Diriel was sick, the priestess summoned Blukros,” Thetta said. “She said Blukros was god of healing.”

“I'm not sure warlockry is something that needs healing,” Mavi said doubtfully. She glanced at Aniara's mother—Pancha's mother, as well—who was sitting in the rocking chair in the corner, rocking steadily in unhappy silence.

The five women did not speak for a moment after that; the knowledge of a god's presence was affecting them all, in various ways. At last Aniara said, “Mavi, tell me more about what Lord Faran said!”

Welcoming the distraction, Mavi began a detailed account of Lord Faran's actions the previous day. She had gotten to his sorcerous conversation with the wizard Ithinia when the air suddenly stirred, and an invisible pressure seemed to be lifted from the room.

All eyes turned to the stairs.

“It must be over,” Oria said.

A moment later they all heard the sound of a door opening and of Pancha snuffling; then the theurgist came slowly down the stairs, straightening his white robe.

“What happened?” Aniara asked, leaping to her feet.

The theurgist took a deep breath, then said, “I consulted the goddess Unniel the Discerning, and I'm afraid the results are not what you hoped for.”

“What do you mean?”

The theurgist sighed. “I mean the goddess could not even recognize your sister as human.” Before anyone could respond, he raised a hand and continued. “This isn't as significant as it sounds—the gods see things differently than we do, and often don't perceive magicians other than theurgists as human. There are some people they can't see at all; we don't know why, and they have never managed to explain it in ways we can understand. Unniel could see Pancha, but not as a human being; she said Pancha was a thing she had no Ethsharitic word for.”

Aniara made a strangled noise.

“Unniel could not tell me anything useful about this magic,” the theurgist said. “She could not remove it, and assured me no other god or demon could. She said it was unlikely that any other magic could reverse Pancha's transformation, due to something she called an
ursettor fwal
in Pancha's brain, but reminded me that even the gods don't understand wizardry or know exactly what it can and cannot do.”

“So she's still a warlock?” Aniara's mother demanded. Mavi turned, startled, to see that the older woman had stopped rocking and was staring intently at the priest.

“Yes, she's still a warlock,” the theurgist replied. “There's nothing more I can do about it.”

“I don't want a warlock in my house,” the old woman said.

“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 a
thing
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 that
everyone
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 the
principle
of the thing—she had something that
ought
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 come
here,
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 was
done
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 down Arena 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 girl
saw
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 I
demand
that you do something about it!”

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

“What action to take? Go
get
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 that
all
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 whore…”

“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 down Wizard 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, Zarréa 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 trust
any
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 what
most
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, nobody 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 an
apprentice,
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't
totally
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.