Night of Madness (3 page)

“It sounds exciting.”

“It isn't, really.”

“Oh,” Mavi said. “Is it at least interesting, then?”

“Sometimes,” Hanner said. He was not entirely comfortable with the subject. He gave the stone cat a final glance, then stepped away from the fence and said, “Come on.”

They moved on down the block and turned left onto East Street, leaving the fine houses and spacious yards of the New City for the ancient, cramped buildings of the Old. Neither of them was inclined to linger in the Old City nor to speak openly there, but a mere fifth of a mile brought them to the massive stone levee at the upper end of the Old Canal, and beyond that they were in Fishertown.

“Now, why doesn't that canal smell as bad as the other?” Hanner asked when they were safely clear of the forbidding streets of the Old City and surrounded by the ordinary homes and shops of Fishertown.

“Better drainage, perhaps?” Mavi suggested. “And the odor's none too sweet, at that.”

“Hmph.” It annoyed Hanner that the Old Canal, which divided Fishertown from the Old City, somehow contrived to not stink anywhere near as strongly as the Grand Canal that surrounded the overlord's palace and connected it to the sea.

The two ambled on through Fishertown and into Newmarket, where they turned onto Carpenter Street and found Mavi's home, a narrow three-story stone house wedged tightly between two other similar structures.

Despite the address her father was not a carpenter at all, but a dealer in tools and weapons who, among other things, provided the city guard with their spears. Mavi's mother worked as book-keeper in the family business, and Mavi managed the household. Nerra had explained all this to Hanner when she first realized her brother's interest in the subject.

Hanner had not been here before, though. He stopped in the middle of the street when Mavi pointed out her home. He had been holding her hand again; now he released it and said, “Well, there you are,” as he looked up at the house.

The stone was weathered, but had been finely polished once. The broad window lintels were carved with floral designs that might once have been brightly painted, though it was hard to be sure in the dim light from the torches at the corner. An oil lamp shone from one front window, but the walls were thick enough, the window deeply set enough, that little of that light reached the lintels. Brackets that had once held heavy shutters now supported pairs of copper chimes instead, chimes that occasionally rang a soft note in the gentle sea breeze.

Two broad stone steps led up to the front door, which was painted dark green and trimmed with black iron. A small niche beside the door had probably held a shrine once, but was now decorated with a pot of flowers.

All in all, Hanner thought it was a fine example of a traditional Ethsharitic home, but one that had changed with the times rather than being carefully preserved.

“Thank you for walking me home,” Mavi said. Then, to Hanner's pleased surprise, she kissed him before turning and hurrying to her parents' door.

Hanner stood in the street for a moment after Mavi had vanished into the house, savoring the memory of that kiss.

He had been kissed before, but not by Mavi. He had not been entirely sure until this moment that she reciprocated his interest in her.

It wasn't unreasonable, he told himself. After all, Mavi came from a family of tradespeople, comfortable but far from truly rich; a match with a lord, even one so unimportant as himself, would surely be seen as a step up the social ladder. And he wasn't actively repulsive, even if he didn't have one-twelfth his uncle's charm.

And maybe she really liked him.

He felt considerably younger than his twenty-three years as he stood there staring at the closed green door of Mavi's home. He hadn't been seriously shy around women since he was sixteen or seventeen, but somehow Mavi brought back the uncertainties of adolescence.

Did this mean he was falling in love, perhaps?

That seemed silly, but he had to admit the possibility.

He also had to admit that his feet were hurting badly. It was time to limp home to bed. The sun had set hours ago, the streets were almost deserted, and Uncle Faran had undoubtedly had his way with Isia, or whatever her name was, by now.

He looked up at the sky. Wisps of cloud obscured most of the stars and turned the black of night to a dull dark gray, making it impossible to judge the exact time. The lesser moon was low in the east, but Hanner could not remember when it was due to rise and set.

A shooting star burned its way across the heavens, from southwest to northeast, as he watched—an extraordinarily big, bright one, he thought. He wondered whether it was natural or the result of some fiery spell; perhaps it was no star at all, but a wizard flying somewhere.

Whatever it was, it was not his concern. He sighed, turned, and began trudging back toward the Palace.

He had just reached the corner where he turned from Carpenter Street onto Newmarket Street when he stumbled and gasped. He did not know
why
he had stumbled; he felt as if something had struck him, but nothing had. He had a momentary sensation of heat and smothering, but it passed—and he had no time to think about it, really, before the screaming began.

He straightened up, his eyes wide. Several voices were screaming somewhere in the distance—at least four or five, perhaps more. They had all begun simultaneously, at the exact instant he had gasped.

Something crashed somewhere far off; he heard glass breaking and heavy things falling.

Mostly, though, he heard the screaming.

Then, as he tried to determine which direction the screams were coming from, they stopped, one by one—and as they did he realized they had come from several different directions.

Half a dozen voices scattered all over Fishertown and Newmarket had begun screaming simultaneously. No single natural shock could have caused that.

“Magic,” Hanner said. He remembered the shooting star he had seen moments before and wondered whether there was a connection. He frowned. He hoped that this wasn't the beginning of trouble.

He couldn't think of any particular spells that would have caused it, but magic—especially wizardry and demonology—could be unpredictable.

He looked up at the sky, but there were no more shooting stars. He did see several dark shapes moving in the distance—large night birds, perhaps, or wizards flying on some errand. He couldn't judge their size well in the darkness.

And it was then he heard the shattering of glass, much closer at hand than before, and renewed screaming, from somewhere ahead and to the right. He broke into a trot, despite his sore feet, and steered toward the sound.

Someone might need his help.

Chapter Three

Lord Faran sat bolt upright in his bed, gasping for air, eyes wide and staring into the dark; he fought down an urge to scream, and instead found himself coughing uncontrollably.

The woman beside him rolled over and raised herself up on her elbows. “Fari?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

He tried to wave her away, but he was coughing too hard to complete the gesture; nonetheless she rolled away again, and in fact tumbled out of bed onto the floor.

The braided rug provided little cushioning, and the bedroom floor was stone. “Ow!” she exclaimed.

Faran had no time to worry about the woman's clumsiness—he barely remembered her name. (Isia, a part of his mind reminded him, and she hadn't been at all clumsy an hour or two ago.) He stared at the window, where the glow of the city, the stars, and the lesser moon filtered dimly through the lace curtains, and tried to calm himself.

The coughing tapered off.

The dream that had awakened him had been
important
—he knew that, he had
felt
it, unmistakably. It had been not merely important, but
urgent,
as no natural dream could be. It must have been magic.

Faran had experienced magical dreams before, when wizards had used one version or another of the Spell of Invaded Dreams to send him messages, and he had always remembered the gist of them after awakening—it was, he had assumed, part of the spell, since they wouldn't be much use as a means of communication otherwise. This time, though, his memory was vague and confused, as it might be after an ordinary nightmare.

He remembered that he had been falling, and something had been burning him, there had been fire and rushing air, and then all motion had stopped and he had been trapped somehow, and throughout there had been pain and terror … but it was all a jumble. The images he could recall were all distorted. He could not bring back any faces, nor even any totems—all he could remember seeing were flames and clouds and stone.

He knew that whoever had sent the dream wanted him, Lord Faran, to
do
something, to go somewhere and do something as soon as possible—but he had no idea where, or what he should do, or who had sent it.

If this was the Spell of Invaded Dreams, it had gone wrong somewhere.

He wondered whether perhaps this was some other sort of magic entirely, one of the less reliable sorts—witchcraft or sorcery, perhaps, or even herbalism or one of the really minor schools like science or spiritism or ritual dance. He couldn't see how it could be theurgy—if a god sent him a dream, he was fairly certain he would know it. The gods might be whimsical and subtle, but this didn't seem to be their style.

Demonology, perhaps—could demons send dreams? If they could, they might well produce a tangled, ambiguous mess like this.

“That wasn't very nice,” Isia said, climbing back into the bed.

“What wasn't?” Faran asked, startled from his thoughts.

“Shoving me out of bed like that,” Isia replied. “You could have just waved me away, and I wouldn't have bothered you.”

“Shoving you?” Faran looked at her, astonished but not allowing it to show on his face. “Did I shove you?”

“Oh, no, why, of
course
not! I just dove out of bed onto hard stone and bruised my shoulder on a whim.” She glared at him, then whirled and reached for the shift she had left draped on a nearby chair.

“My dear, my dear, I
am
sorry,” he said—not that he was actually sorry, but a man in his position should not make enemies, no matter how trivial, unnecessarily. “I was caught up in the dream that awakened me.”

“A dream? What kind of dream?” She paused, the shift in her hand, eyeing him suspiciously, her mouth drawn into a tight line.

He allowed himself a puzzled smile. “Do you know, I can't remember!” he said. “A nightmare, I think—I believe it was trying to scream that started me coughing. And I really didn't mean to shove you, Isia—I hadn't even realized I had done it.” In fact, he was quite sure he had not touched her—yet she was clearly convinced he had pushed her out of the bed. He watched for any sign of a softening in her anger, and when he saw her thinned lips relax slightly he leaned over and kissed her lightly on her bare shoulder—he couldn't reach her cheek without stretching, and that would not have the properly casual air.

She accepted the kiss with a small sigh, and put down her shift, draping it on the side of the bed. Still sitting up naked in the bed, she turned and smiled at him. “I should go,” she said.

“Well, not to please
me,
certainly,” he said. “But is there some other reason?”

“My parents,” she said. “I shouldn't stay the night; they'll think we're betrothed.”

“I wish we were,” Faran said, “but as I told you before, there are family considerations.” That was a lie—one he told all his women. His position was mostly his own achievement, and his bloodline, while technically noble, was not particularly notable; his surviving family, comprised of two nieces and a nephew, didn't care who, if, or when he married.

“I know,” Isia said with another sigh. “You've been very sweet, Fari—except for pushing me out of bed just now.”

“And I'm very sorry about that. Blame whatever ghost or demon sent me that nightmare, and forgive me, please.”

She bent over and kissed him on the forehead. “Of course,” she said. Then she reached for her shift, and this time pulled it over her head.

Faran took a moment to light a bedside lamp—he kept a sorcerous sparker handy, far easier than an ordinary tinderbox and quicker than calling a servant. The wick caught quickly, and he turned it up, filling the room with the yellow glow of burning oil. Then he turned back to Isia. He watched her dress, pretending his attention was entirely on her beauty and his affection for her.

Now, why did she think he had shoved her? He hadn't touched her; he was quite sure of it. He had been leaning on one elbow, and his other hand at his throat, trying to control his coughing; he could not possibly have shoved her.

A kick would have been physically possible, but a look at the bedclothes convinced him that he had not unconsciously kicked her; his feet were still tucked neatly under the snug coverlet.

Isia was not clumsy, though—at least, he had never seen her do anything else clumsy in the four days he had known her, nor had she seemed inclined to fancies or delusions. On general principles he avoided bedding women whose grasp on reality seemed less than solid, and Isia had shown none of the warning signs he had learned to recognize.

So perhaps
something
had shoved her out of bed. He had already concluded his rapidly fading nightmare had been magical in origin; might there have been other magic at work? A ghost, a demon, a sprite of some kind?

There had been no other manifestation, though.

Once Isia had her shift in place she crossed the room to the bench where she had draped her skirt.

Faran tried to remember exactly what had been happening when Isia found herself propelled from her place. She had been lying on her belly, propped up on her elbows; he had been on his back, on one elbow, his right hand at his throat. He had tried to wave her away with his left hand, as he had not wanted her touching him …