“So do you think someone somewhere is supplying the magical power forthis war-locking?” Hanner asked. “Will it end when that source dies?”
Perréa turned up an empty palm. “Who knows? I told you, I’m guessing.”
“And while we’re guessing, people are dying,” Hanner said. “Things are being smashed and stolen and burned all over the city. We need todo something.” He looked at Rudhira. “Get Yorn, and anyone else who came with you who can use this magic. To deal with magic, find a magician, she said; well, it would seem the ordinary magicians can’t deal with this, but maybeyou can.” He took a deep breath, then said, “As a representative of Azrad, overlord of Ethshar of the Spices, I hereby require you to accompany me and obey me, and I pledge that service will be rewarded.”
Even as he spoke, Hanner had second thoughts. He always said the wrong thing, he had told Mavi as much a few hours ago. Had he just done it again?
But somebody did have to do something!
Rudhira looked at the embroidered silk on Hanner’s shoulders and the bay-leaf sigil on his breast. “He can do that?” she asked Perréa.
“He’s a lord of the city, so he has the authority, yes,” Perréa said, looking somewhat bemused. “I’d never have expected this of Lord Hanner, though. He’s taking a risk. If he misuses this power he can be beheaded for it-but that’s up to the overlord to decide, not you. For now, the law says you have to obey him.”
Hanner shuddered at the reminder of the possible consequences-but he was sure now he was doing the right thing, and that his uncle and old Azrad would approve. “Get Yorn and the others,” he told Rudhira. Then he raised his voice and announced to the entire street, “Any of you who can use this new magic, I hereby require you to accompany me and obey me, in the overlord’s name!”
The hum of conversation stopped, and half a hundred faces turned to look at him.
“Your services will be rewarded,” he said. “And disobedience will be punished.”
Though just how he would enforce that if these people could fly and throw things around without touching them, he had no idea.
Chapter Six
Throughout the World, as people discovered their new talents, sudden dramas played themselves out. Most of these were quick and ended badly.
In the Small Kingdoms His Majesty Agravan III, King of Tir-issa, was very drunk as he made his way up the stairs to his apartments, so drunk that one of his bodyguards had to support him. The evening had begun as a celebration of the arrival of the new ambassador from Trafoa, but had quickly turned into simply another night of swilling ale with the gentlemen of the court.
Queen Rulura, until recently a princess of the more straitlaced neighboring kingdom of Hollendon, had, as usual, gotten disgusted with her husband and gone up to bed early. She had married King Agravan for dynastic reasons, and while they generally got along well enough despite the twelve-year difference in their ages, she never pretended to love everything about him. Excessive drinking usually meant a few days of frosty silence between them.
It was a surprise, therefore, when Agravan found the door of her bedchamber ajar and two lamps burning therein. He signaled to his bodyguards and stumbled over for a closer look.
“Rulura?” he asked, leaning into the room.
“Agri!” she called happily, turning to smile at him. She was sitting at her writing desk. “Come in!”
He took a cautious step into the room. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Look what I can do!” She gestured, and a quill pen floated in midair before her outstretched hand.
Agravan frowned at it, puzzled-but much less drunk than he had been a moment before.
“How?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said cheerfully. “I just discovered that I could do it.”
“It’s magic?”
“I think it must be, yes.”
“Rulura, you’re a queen,” Agravan said quietly. “You don’t do magic.”
“I do now!” she said proudly. “Oh, Agri, think how useful it could be! I can pass things to you where no one can see them, pick things up... I could even be an assassin!” She giggled. “I could go up to someone with empty hands, and then stab him in the back.” “You could,” Agravan said slowly.
“We could use this, Agri, I know we could. It might not be much of anything, but I’m still learning. If there are other things I can do, this might make Tirissa the most powerful of all the Small Kingdoms!”
“Ruli,” Agravan said gently, “the Wizards’ Guild forbids kings and queens to use magic.”
Rulura hesitated. “I thought that was just for wars.”
“No, the agreement not to fight wars with magic is just good sense, that’s not the Guild’s doing.”
“Well, I didn’t go out andlearn this,” the queen protested. “It just happened.”
Agravan nodded. “I’m sure it did,” he said. “Maybe it will go away again. Good night, Ruli.” He stepped back and closed the door.
Then he beckoned to one of his bodyguards and told him quietly, “Tonight, when she’s asleep, kill her.” He no longer sounded drunk at all.
“Kill thequeen}” the guard asked, startled.
“Yes,” Agravan said. “Kill the queen.” He glanced back at the door, hoping this mysterious magic hadn’t given Rulura the ability to hear through a closed door.
“It’ll mean war with Hollendon, Your Majesty,” the bodyguard warned him. “Are you sure you shouldn’t wait until you’re sober to decide such a thing?”
“I’m sure,” Agravan said. “We can’t afford to wait. You heard what she said about putting a knife in someone’s back. She might well put one inmy back, if she thinks she can use her magic to get away with it. There’s areason the Wizards’ Guild won’t allow anyone of royal blood to learn magic.”
“She’s just levitating pens,” the guard protested.
“So farit’s just pens. I’m not going to risk waiting. You have your orders.”
The bodyguard sighed. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said.
An hour later the only member of any royal family in the Small Kingdoms to have become a warlock became a corpse, eliminating any possible threat to the Guild’s prohibitions on mixing magic and government.
In one small village in Aldagmor, easternmost and most mountainous of the Baronies of Sardiron, an old woman named Kara had hidden in her wardrobe when the screaming and other noises began. Now that everything had been quiet for a time she finally emerged, looking around cautiously by the dim moonlight.
Everything appeared normal. She lit a lamp and saw that her bedroom was undamaged. The village was quiet.
The village was, she thought,too quiet. After all the commotion before she would have expected her neighbors to be gossiping in the road, but she couldn’t hear any voices through her open window. She threw on a shawl-even in midsummer the night breeze could be cool on the slopes of the mountains-and hurried through the other room of her cottage, out into the center of the village.
It was utterly deserted.
She looked around at the other houses. Some were intact, untouched and dark.