“Well, what’s done is done,” he said. “Get up, you, and come along-we’re heading for the Palace, and if you cooperate we’ll put in a good word for you when the time comes.” He reached down a hand to help the warlock up.
The older man rolled over and took Hanner’s hand.
A moment later the entire party was once again marching down Fish Street, leaving the surviving inhabitants of the neighborhood, now warily emerging from their ruined homes, to put out the fires and clean up the mess.
Chapter Eight
Kirsha sat in the middle of the street, wrapped in wine-red velvet while a cluster of stolen jewelry orbited slowly above her head, and shivered, despite the warmth of the summer night and the heat from the burning tannery a block to the north. Bolts of cloth lay strewn on the street around her. It wasn’t a dream. She was sure of that now. She had begun to doubt it some time ago, when she realized she could feel the heat of the flames and the hard ground beneath her bare feet when she landed. Her dreams were never so detailed as this.
It was magic, some terrible magic, and she had been caught up in it and done crazy things. She had stolen all this pretty cloth, a dozen silver rounds’ worth at the very least, and the jewelry, which was probably worth the same in gold. She had smashed in people’s shop windows, and had flung broken window glass at people who annoyed her...
She shuddered at that, and thanked the gods that she hadn’t hit anyone.
At least, she didn’tthink she had.
Just then she heard voices and looked up to see a woman flying.
For a moment she almost reconsidered, and decided she was dreaming after all. The woman practically glowed red in the torchlight and moonlight and firelight; her clothing was all red and gold, her very hair was an orange color Kirsha had never seen before, her face was heavily made up so that her cheeks shone red, and she was flying along as casually as a hummingbird.
Then the woman called to her, “Are you all right?” and she knew it wasn’t a dream.
“No,” Kirsha said miserably, huddling down under her stolen velvet.
“Lord Hanner!” the woman in red called. “This way!”
Two more flying apparitions appeared around the corner, and a small crowd of people on foot. Kirsha felt something close around her, and suddenly the spinning, flying jewelry fell to the ground.
A plump, curly-haired young man in a silk-trimmed tunic came trotting up to her. “Are you injured?” he asked.
“She’s fine, physically,” the woman in red replied.
“Just upset,” said the other flying woman, who wore green and brown and was fatter and older than the first.
“Who are you?” Kirsha asked.
“I am Lord Hanner,” the plump young man said. “These are warlocks under my command-people affected by this magic.”
“Like me?” Kirsha asked.
“More or less,” Lord Hanner said. He frowned. “It looks to me as if you’ve been...”
“Stealing,” Kirsha said, lifting up a length of velvet. “I know. I went a little crazy, and thought it was all a dream, or that the whole World had gone mad.”
“We’ve seen quite a bit of that,” Lord Hanner said. “I think you’ll have to come with us-the overlord’s magistrates will want to talk to you.” He looked around at the scattered fabric. “First, though-do you know where all this came from? We should take it back to its rightful owners.”
Kirsha nodded. “I think I remember it all.”
“Good,” Hanner said-and the bolts of cloth rose into the air around them, like a tent being lifted into place or banners being raised. Kirsha’s eyes widened.
She wasn’t doing this.
“Lead the way,” Hanner said, offering a hand to help her up.
Lord Faran straightened his tunic slightly as he stepped into the lesser audience chamber, and tried his best to look completely untroubled by all the madness around him. Lord Azrad looked up at him.
“Well, it’s about time you got here!” the overlord said.
“Your pardon, my lord,” Faran said, essaying a small bow. “I was attending to urgent business elsewhere in the Palace.”
Azrad eyed him suspiciously. The overlord was always foul-tempered when his sleep was interrupted, but his expression seemed unusually sour even so.
“In the Palace?” Azrad asked.
“Yes, my lord. Attending to a few personal matters, and then checking to see who had been awakened and who had not, who was where, and so on-seeing to the overlord’s business as best I could.”
The personal matters had been discovering that while Nerra and Alris were secure in their own beds, Hanner had never returned from his walk; and that Isia had left the Palace before the overlord had ordered the entrances to be sealed and no one to be permitted in or out. The girls had been awakened by the noise and were probably still up, chattering, but they were safe at home while Hanner was not, and while Isia might or might not have reached her parents’ house safely.
Faran was not pleased at the thought that his nephew and his mistress were somewhere out in the city while magic-wielding lunatics were rampaging through the streets, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.
At least, not that he knew of-but of course, he could apparently wield that same magic, and he had no idea what that might make possible.
“Good,” Azrad said.“Nobody is to leave, not even you, Faran. And no one’s to enter. I don’t want to risk this thing, whatever it is, contaminating my home!”
“Of course, my lord,” Faran said. Long years of practice allowed him to keep his expression utterly calm as he realized that Azrad did not know that whatever had happened had already affected people inside the Palace.
So far he knew of two people who had been awakened by a nightmare and found themselves able to do strange magic-himself, and a serving girl in the kitchens by the name of Hinda. Faran had gone down to the kitchens to make sure there was sufficient food available for the extra guards and anyone else summoned from their beds, should they become hungry, and had found three of the cooks making a fuss over the little orphan.
Hinda had demonstrated that she could send a spoon skittering across the table or hopping up and down like a frightened flea. Faran had told her not to worry about it right now, but to get the cooking fires hot and see what was in the stores.
“I don’t like this,” Azrad said, shaking his head. “Wild magic running loose, people flying around like wizards-it’s not good, not good at all. Someone’s up to something, some magician somewhere. I won’t have it. The wizards say we can’t mix magic and government, so they’ve been watching the government-but maybe they haven’t been watching the right magicians,hai?”
“Maybe,” Faran agreed. “Has someone spoken to any of our hired magicians to ask if they know what’s going on?”
“My brother’s attending to it.”
“Ah... which brother, my lord?”
“Lord Karannin, of course. He’s Lord High Magistrate.”
“The Lord of the Household works with magicians as well, my lord.”
“Clurim has enough to do.”
Faran started to ask just what Lord Clurim had to do, then decided not to. If Azrad wanted to tell him, he would-and if he didn’t, Lord Faran would find out elsewhere.
“Lord Karannin deals with several magicians, but none of them are of any great note, my lord. Perhaps I should go speak to Guild-master Ithinia-” “If you leave the Palace you won’t get back in,” Azrad interrupted. “Not even you, my lord.”
“Then I won’t go,” Faran said promptly.