Night of Madness

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  His foot hit an obstruction-Deathbringer, the wizard's cat. Deathbringer yowled in protest. Trying desperately not to hurt the cat, trying not to drop the firewood, Ulpen lost his balance and began to fall backward. The sticks tumbled from his arms as he belatedly flung out his hands to catch himself.

  "Augh!" he said as he and the wood stopped falling.

  Then he realized that he hadn't hit the plank floor, and that the sticks hadn't, either. The little stack of wood had somehow reformed, balanced impossibly on his chest as he rested on one leg, one palm, and empty air.

  Magic had broken his fall.

  "Thank you, Master," he said, carefully lowering himself and the wood to the floor and turning to the doorway. Since he had hardly been in a position to cast a spell even had he thought quickly enough, he assumed his master had stopped his fall.

  Sure enough, the wizard Abdaran stood in the kitchen doorway, staring down at his apprentice and frowning. The frown deepened as he said, "It was none of my doing."

  Ulpen blinked. He gathered up the wood and set it on the floor, then sat up, turning to face his master.

  "Until you spoke I had intended to ask you what spell you used," Abdaran said. "I didn't recognize it and thought perhaps you had been meddling in things best left alone."

  "I haven't, Master," Ulpen protested. "I didn't do anything!"

  "Yet you stopped falling in midair, and the wood did not scatter."

  "It's definitely magic, Master, but it's not mine."

  "Nor is it mine."

  "But..." Ulpen looked around uneasily. "We're the only wizards in North Herris, aren't we?"

  "To the best of my knowledge, we are," Abdaran agreed. "Nor are there any in South or East Herris. But are we sure that it was wizardry that stopped your fall?"

  "No," Ulpen admitted. "But what, then?"

  "You tell me, apprentice," Abdaran said, switching to his lecturing tone.

  Ulpen chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully as he got to his feet and brushed off his breeches. Then he looked at his master. "It might be gods, demons, witchcraft, sorcery, some unknown natural phenomenon, or... well, or something we don't know about."

  Abdaran smothered a smile. "I would say that covers the possibilities," he acknowledged. "That last category is perhaps a bit over-inclusive, though."

  Ulpen did not bother responding to that; instead he said, "There aren't any sorcerers left around here, are there?"

  "Not so far as I'm aware. There are four witches in East Herris, but no known sorcerers."

  "Why would the witches have kept me from falling?"

  "I can't imagine how they would know, or why they would bother," Abdaran replied. "We could ask them."

  That idea did not appeal to Ulpen. Witches could read people's emotions, sometimes even their thoughts, and that made the apprentice nervous. "I'm sure they meant no harm," he said.

  "And why do you assume it was the witches?" Abdaran asked. "You haven't eliminated all the other possibilities on your list."

  "Well, we eliminated sorcery ..."

  "No, we did not," Abdaran interrupted. "We eliminated known sorcerers. There could be someone new in the area, using this as a rather unorthodox introduction, or perhaps a sorcerer has been hiding here all along, or perhaps this was some leftover bit of sorcery from some long-ago spell."

  Ulpen considered that as he gathered up the wood. He tossed the first stick into the fire-just barely in time, as the tinder had all but burned away-and said, "But in that case, couldn't it just as well be some side effect of wizardry? A spell cast a hundred years ago, or a hundred leagues away?"

  "Or to be cast at some time in the future," Abdaran agreed approvingly.

  Ulpen threw another stick of wood on the fire as he absorbed that. The idea that a spell that hadn't been performed yet could somehow affect them was new to him, and he found it hard to think about.

  "And gods or demons?" Abdaran prompted.

  "Can't be demons unless there's a demonologist," Ulpen said. "The demons were shut out of the World after the Great War, and can't interfere in human affairs uninvited."

  "There are demonologists in the World, though," Abdaran said.

  "Not around here, are there?" He glanced at his master and saw the satisfied expression of a teacher about to reiterate a favorite point, and quickly added, "That we know of?"

  Abdaran let out the breath he had drawn. "Not that we know of," he said.

  "And the gods ... well, they do favors for theurgists, but other than that they don't generally intervene in little things like stumbling over a cat."

  "Not generally," Abdaran agreed.

  "Do you think Sinassa might have asked a god to look after me?" Sinassa the Theurgist lived in South Herris; Ulpen had met her once when he was very young, when his mother had taken him to have a fever cured, and rumor had it that Abdaran had romanced her briefly many years ago.

  "Do you think so?" Abdaran replied. "Have you paid her to do so, or even asked her?"

  "No," Ulpen said as he threw in more wood. "I haven't spoken to ... blast!" He dropped the rest of the wood and knelt in front of the stove.

  He had been careless, and most of the kindling had burned away while he was talking; his latest addition to the fire, rather than adding fuel, had smothered the flame. There were still glowing coals, but he knew those wouldn't be enough to light the new wood without help. He breathed gently into the stove, trying to coax a new flame.

  "Come on, come on," he muttered to himself. "Come on!"

  A wisp of smoke rose from the little heap of wood, then vanished.

  Relighting the fire was not really a serious problem; if all else failed, he could douse it completely and start from scratch, using either flint and steel or Thrindle's Combustion.

  That, however, would be a nuisance and would undoubtedly trigger a long lecture from Abdaran on the necessity of maintaining a proper household and not relying excessively on wizardry for everyday tasks.

  If he had had any sulfur at hand he might have surreptitiously worked the Combustion anyway, but the nearest sulfur was in the workshop, and besides, using the Combustion on something that was already burning would produce an explosion. The iron stove might contain such a blast without damage-but it might not, and blowing the kitchen stove to bits would get him worse than a mere lecture.

  He stared at the wood, willing it to burn. ..

  And it did. It flared an eerie, unnatural orange, then smoldered, sizzled, spat sparks, and caught fire.

  "What did you do?" Abdaran said, suddenly close at Ulpen's side.

  "I... I don't know!" Ulpen said, staring into the stove.

  "It glowed orange," Abdaran said.

  "Yes," Ulpen agreed, still staring.

  "You did it somehow, didn't you, boy?"

  Ulpen nodded.

  "Can you do it again?" Abdaran handed Ulpen another stick of wood.

  Ulpen accepted it with unsteady fingers. He looked at the stick, then looked into the stove.

  The fire was burning merrily-not the fragile, uneven flame of a newly lit fire, but a steady blaze, as if it had been burning half an hour; putting the stick in there would be more than enough to light it without any magic.

  Instead, Ulpen stood up, backed away, then raised the stick like a torch. He stared at it, and willed it to burn.

  The stick-and his band-glowed orange; sparks flew, and flame burst from the wood. The sudden heat was far more than he had expected; startled, Ulpen dropped the stick. . .

  And caught it a foot from the floor, without touching it.

  "It's you" Abdaran said. "Something's enchanted you."

  Ulpen nodded and, still without touching it, flung the burning stick into the stove.

  "How did you do that?" Abdaran asked.

  "I don't know, Master!" Ulpen wailed. "Can't you tell?"

  Abdaran turned up an empty palm. "This is nothing I've ever seen before," he said. "Nor have I read of anything like this, and if my own master ever mentioned it,
I either wasn't listening or forgot it long ago."

  "But... can't you do something? You're a master wizard!"

  Abdaran looked at Ulpen quizzically. "How do you feel?" he said.

  "I..." Ulpen stopped, considering the question more carefully. "I feel fine, actually." To his surprise, he realized that he felt better than he had in days. The queasy residue of his nightmares and his usual morning grogginess had both vanished. His unhap-piness was entirely due to the shock of discovering his unexpected abilities, not from any sort of physical discomfort.

  "Not tired?"

  "No."

  "Then it's not that you've suddenly learned witchcraft-I know from Cardel and Luralla that witches find fire-lighting exhausting."

  "Then it's not witchcraft," Ulpen agreed. Aside from being frightening because it was strange, the fire-lighting experience had been more exhilarating than exhausting. "Isn't there some spell we can use to figure this out? Some divination?"

  Abdaran snorted. "Ulpen, I may technically be a master wizard, but if I could do that sort of divination, do you really think I'd be out here in North Herris, selling love potions and treating cattle for mange and the like?"

  The question startled Ulpen, who had never given the matter any thought at all. Abdaran had always been here, always been the town's one wizard, an unquestioned part of the community; it had never occurred to Ulpen that Abdaran might ever want to be somewhere else.

  "No, this one is beyond me," Abdaran said, not waiting for Ulpen to answer. "I think you'd better see someone who knows far more magic than I do."

  "But..." Ulpen began.

  "I think this is a matter for the Wizards' Guild," Abdaran said, ignoring Ulpen's attempt to speak. "Unknown magic is always a Guild matter."

  Ulpen's eyes widened. "It is?" he asked.

  He had heard of the Wizards' Guild, of course, and he was technically a member-he had sworn half a dozen great and terrifying oaths to that effect when he first started his apprenticeship and began to learn the secrets of wizardry. Every wizard was required to join the Guild; the penalty for practicing wizardry without joining, vigorously enforced by the Guild itself, was death.

  But Ulpen had never had any real contact with the Guild outside his apprenticeship with Abdaran. He had met perhaps three other wizards in his life, all very briefly, and each had been an ordinary hedgerow wizard like Abdaran, not anyone Ulpen thought of as representing the Guild. The Guild had seemed to him this mysterious, all-powerful organization lurking somewhere beyond the horizon.

  He had always known that upon completing his apprenticeship he would be presented to representatives of the Guild who would approve or disapprove his elevation to journeyman; he had known that someday, barring disaster, he would be examined by the Guild for the rank of master and the right to take on apprentices of his own.

  Those, however, had been far-off matters-he assumed he still had a good two years left before he would be rated a journeyman- and quite intimidating enough.

  "You'll have to see the Guildmaster," Abdaran said.

  Ulpen's eyes widened farther. "You mean the head of the entire Guild?"

  Abdaran started. "What? No, no, of course not. I mean Guild-master Manrin, in Ethshar of the Sands. He's only responsible for this area, he's not the head of the entire Guild. There are dozens of Guildmasters in the World. I don't even know who's the head of the entire Guild-and I don't think I want to, and I think that if you're wise, you won't want to, either."

  "Oh," Ulpen said. This was not helping his self-confidence at all.

  "Come on, then," Abdaran said, turning away. "Pack your things. It's a long walk to the city, and we'd better get started."

  "Wh ..." Ulpen hesitated, tried to think of something intelligent to say, and finally could find no response more appropriate than "Yes, Master."

  The two wizards, master and apprentice, had been gone for perhaps half an hour when several terrified villagers and folk from nearby farms came to Abdaran's home, seeking counsel regarding the bizarre nightmares a few of them had experienced the night before, the mysterious abilities that two of them had manifested, and the unexplained overnight disappearance of three people.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lord Manner did not realize immediately that he was actually awake; the view before him was so unfamiliar that at first he thought he was still dreaming. Gradually, though, memories of the night before drifted back, and he began to recognize his surroundings.

  This was Uncle Faran's bedchamber, in his mansion on High Street-the mansion Faran had never admitted to Hanner that he owned.

  Hanner was looking at a fine mirror framed in polished brass; it stood on a small bedside table, just visible past the edge of the bed curtains, and reflected in it Hanner could see a small bronze statue of a nude couple entangled with one another, and beyond that a larger marble statue of a naked woman.

  That was why he had thought he was dreaming; in his waking life up until last night he had only seen such statuary in gardens and grand halls, never in bedrooms.

  The room was dim, but the fact that he could see at all meant it was after dawn, since he had put out the lamp before going to sleep. He sat up.

  Sunlight was leaking in through the shutters and curtains that hid the two large windows. Hanner pushed aside the black silk coverlet, slipped out of bed, and padded over to the nearer one.

  He opened the drapes and unlatched the shutters; the wooden panels swung open.

  Light blazed in, forcing Hanner to squint and blink; at first he thought he had accidentally looked directly into the sun. When he could see clearly again, though, he realized that the sun was nowhere to be seen-in fact, thinking about the house's location and where the bedchamber was, he realized the windows faced north. It was simply the contrast between the bright light of a summer day and the dimness of a shuttered room that had fooled him.

  The windows opened out onto a balcony overlooking the mansion's garden; Hanner unlatched one and stepped outside into the day's heat. To the left he could see over the garden wall and across Coronet Street; ahead and to the left he could see down Coronet to the intersection with Merchant Street. Directly ahead, beyond the garden, he could see the back of what he took to be a tradesman's home, with rooms above a shop, while to the right beyond the garden wall was another garden and the rear of another mansion.

  From the shadows of the trees in the garden and shadows on the surrounding walls, he judged it to be midmorning, halfway between dawn and noon. He had never intended to sleep so late- but then, he had never intended to stay up so late the night before!

  Half the morning was gone-the entire mess caused by the mysterious new magic might well have been straightened out and dealt with by now.

  He certainly hoped it had been. He saw no signs of trouble on the visible portions of Coronet or Merchant Street. Traffic seemed perhaps a little light-but he didn't really know what was normal for this neighborhood, since he had rarely had any business here.

  He didn't have a clear view of anything more than a block away, so he couldn't very well look for smoke from still-burning buildings or warlocks flying about, but the few people he did see in the street were walking, not running. That was a good sign, but hardly definitive.

  It could all be over, or it could just be a lull.

  Well, he told himself, he couldn't really expect to find out anything staring out at his uncle's garden-except that Uncle Faran had been far less imaginative and extravagant in arranging his garden than in furnishing his house, as the paths were broad and straight, the flowerbeds and hedges simple, the statuary sparse.

  If he wanted to know what was happening, he would have to go out and see. He turned back inside and looked for his boots, wishing he had a clean pair of stockings to wear.

  A moment later he was in the hallway, fully dressed. Unsurprisingly, Bern was nowhere at hand; a bellpull hung by the side of Uncle Faran's bed, but Hanner had not wanted to use it. None of the others-neither Alris nor any of the score of
warlocks- was in sight, either, but Hanner could hear voices drifting up the stairs from below. He started down.

  He was perhaps halfway down 'when Rudhira's head appeared around a door frame at the foot of the stairs. Her long hair was a mess, disarrayed and tangled-if her room had contained a hairbrush she obviously hadn't used it. She had cleaned off her makeup, however, and that, added to the difference between the bright morning sunlight spilling through the windows and the firelight Hanner had seen her by the night before, made her look almost a different person-a younger and more appealing one, so far as Hanner was concerned.

  Hanner noticed that she was wearing the same red tunic and skirt as the night before, somewhat the worse for having been slept in-but of course, what else would she have to wear? He was still in the same clothes himself.

  The difference, he thought to himself, was that his clothes were far more appropriate to these surroundings, and to daylight, than Rudhira's.

  "There you are!" she said. "We've been waiting!"

  Hanner really didn't know how to answer that, so he didn't; instead he simply nodded and continued down the steps.

  Rudhira met him at the foot of the staircase and took his arm to lead him into what he discovered to be the mansion's dining hall.

  "My lord," Bern said, appearing as Hanner stepped through the door. He bowed discreetly. "I have kept the head of the table for you-I assume your uncle will not be joining us?"

  "So far as I know, he'll be staying in the Palace until further notice," Hanner agreed.

  "And will your party be staying on?"

  "I don't know," Hanner said. "We'll have to discuss that later."

  "If I may say so, so large a group is really more than I can care for single-handed at even a minimal level. If you do stay, I feel it would be advisable to call in more servants. Your uncle has a fine staff on call."

  "I'll let you know what we decide," Hanner said, moving past and turning his attention to the others in the room-and to the room itself.

  The dining hall was large-which was hardly surprising in a house this size. A splendid table of gleaming unfamiliar wood inlaid with ivory took up the center of the room, with a dozen oaken chairs spaced along its sides and one larger chair at the far end. Four ornate cabinets were arranged along the east and west walls, each with various drawers and compartments glittering with brass and ivory inlay; three of the four included glass-fronted upper sections, and Hanner could see something moving behind one of those panels, but the glass was so elaborately cut and beveled that he could not tell what it was. Since that was hardly an appropriate place to keep a pet, he supposed Uncle Faran had indulged in some variety of magically animated tableware.