“Mind your own business, witch!” the young man bellowed back.
“Warlock,” Rudhira answered. “Not witch. I’m a warlock now, just as you are.”
“Oh, no,” the man replied. “Not likeme. I’m the most powerful of all!”
“You haven’t proved that tomy satisfaction,” the older man barked.
“I would have, if she hadn’t interrrupted!” He turned his attention from Rudhira to the older man. “I already knocked down three people who thought they could match me-”
“You’re forgetting something,” Rudhira interrupted. “It tookboth of you to stop me-and now I have help!” She raised her hands again-not in a defensive gesture, but spread wide in defiance.
The young man dropped heavily to the ground and fell back, lying supine across a smashed window frame.
“The rest of you keep the other one busy,” Rudhira ordered as she glided forward, toward her downed opponent.
The older man looked alarmed and started to turn away.
“Stop him!” Hanner ordered. “All of you but Rudhira-knock him down!”
It was as if a gigantic hand had swatted him from the sky; the older man smashed into the ground flat on his face and lay stunned. Hanner was somewhat stunned as well, though for only an instant. He had not realized how effectively his warlocks could work together.
“Just hold him,” Hanner said. “Don’t hurt him.” Then he turned to Rudhira.
She loomed over the young man, her red dress catching the firelight vividly, almost seeming to glow-in fact, Hanner thought it mightbe glowing. Given how little was known about this new magic, this so-called warlockry, that would hardly be surprising.
Rudhira hovered about five feet up, arms spread, glaring down at the young man struggling to rise-not to sit up, but to lift himself off the ground. He fluttered slightly, like a fallen leaf stirred by the wind, but could not levitate himself more than an inch or two against Rudhira’s resistance.
At last he let himself fall back. “You killedmore than three, then?” he asked.
Hanner gasped-but Rudhira snapped, “I didn’t kill anyone!”
“But then how can you be sostrong!”
Rudhira frowned more deeply. “What are you talking about?” she demanded.
“Isn’t that how it works?” the man asked. “I got stronger each time I fought and defeated another one of us... a warlock, you said?”
“That’s what the witches called us,” Rudhira said. “It’s as good a name as any.”
“And you didn’t kill other warlocks?”
“You’re a fool,” Rudhira said. “I didn’t kill anyone. We’re all different-some stronger than others. I was just lucky.”
“But I gotstronger” the man protested. “I know I did! I felt more powerful after each fight!”
Rudhira stared down at him for a moment.
“Yes, I’m sure you did,” she said, disgust plain in her voice. “Have you ever heardof practice? I don’t know what warlockry is, but I know it gets easier with practice-the more I use, the more I can feel it waiting to be used. You were stronger after each of your stupid fights because ofthat, you idiot, not because you were stealing your enemies’ power!”
“Is that really how it works?” Manner asked, but neither Ru-dhira nor her opponent heard him.
If it was so, then any hope he might have had that these warlocks would all use up their power and return to normal was gone.
He turned to the older man and stepped forward, picking his way through the wreckage. “Hold him down,” he called to Yorn and the others as he approached.
Hanner’s route took him past one of the bodies, an old woman, and from the glassy staring eyes and bloodless complexion he was fairly certain she was. dead. He didn’t look; instead he focused on the older warlock.
The man was recovering from his fall-enough to turn his head and look up at Hanner.
“My lord,” he said, recognizing Hanner’s attire.
“Let me go,” Rudhira’s foe said. “I’ll go away if you let me up!”
“Just keep him there for now,” Hanner called back over his shoulder. Then he returned his attention to the older man.
“That one says he killed three people,” Hanner said, indicating the other downed warlock with a jerk of his head. “How many didyou kill?”
“I didn’ttry to kill anyone,” the older warlock said.
“Just let me go!” the younger warlock said. “If you’re right that it’s just practice, then there’s no reason to hurt me!”
“Shut up!” Hanner bellowed at him. “Rudhira, you keep him right where he is.” He turned back to the older man.
“You didn’ttry to,” he said.“Did you?”
“I might have,” the warlock admitted. “I did make some of the mess, I admit it-I was defending myself against that lunatic!”
“Why did you help him fight Rudhira?”
The older man shrugged. “A mistake,” he said. “That fool attacked me-challengedme, he said, for control of the street. I got caught up in it, and when she interrupted us it seemed like an unwelcome nuisance.”
Hanner nodded. “The heat of battle,” he said. “I’ve heard it can make a person do stupid things.”
“Yes, exactly, my lord.”
“And now that the battle’s over, what do you intend to do?”
The man glanced around at the rubble-strewn street, the burning buildings, the old woman’s corpse.
“I suspect I will stand trial before a city magistrate, where I will plead for leniency because I was driven mad by my nightmares and this new magic.” He sighed. “And then I suppose I’ll spend the rest of my life as a slave or in a dungeon somewhere, if I’m not simply hanged.”
“If your plea for leniency is accepted, you might just be flogged or exiled from the city,” Hanner said. “And I think you can reasonably point to all the others who ran wild tonight as evidence to support your case. I take it you’re surrendering to us?”
“I don’t have much of a choice.” Hanner smiled slightly. “No, you don’t,” he agreed.
Then he turned to the other man. “What do you have to say for yourself?” he asked.
“I went mad too, I think,” the younger man said. “I thought I waschosen, that the dreams meant I had to do something with this power I was given. I thought I would fight my way up, killing the others and taking their power, until I was the most powerful magician in the World, and then I would rule all of Ethshar.”
“What about the overlord?” Rudhira demanded.“He rules Ethshar, and he’s not a magician at all!”
“I was going to kill him,” the man admitted.
“That’s treason,” Yorn said.
“Lord Azrad’s a fat old fool!” the warlock shouted, sitting up-Hanner saw Rudhira’s startled expression when he was able to do so; she had clearly not intended to let him up.
“He’s still the overlord,” Hanner said.
“Notmy overlord,” the warlock said, struggling against something invisible.
“Stop fighting,” Hanner ordered him.
“May demons gnaw your bones,” the warlock said. He raised a hand-and suddenly his head twisted around to one side, impossibly far, and Hanner heard the snap of breaking bone. The warlock fell back, limp and lifeless.
Rudhira smiled with satisfaction. Hanner stared up at her. “You didn’t have to kill him!” he shouted.
“He was a traitor and a murderer and I was defending myself,” Rudhira said flatly.
That was obviously true, but Hanner was still upset by her actions. He started to phrase a further protest when the older warlock said, “I helped her.”
“He did,” Rudhira agreed.
Hanner looked from one to the other. He had the distinct feeling that his control of the situation was not as secure as it should be, and that any further disputes would only erode it further.