“It’s no parade, my lord. Surely you’re aware of the mad magicians running riot through the city-you appear to have brought at least one of them with you.” He nodded toward Rudhira.
“Of course I’m aware!” Hanner said. “And I’ve brought some of them here for the overlord to deal with.” He gestured at his party. “We’ve taken four criminal warlocks prisoner and brought them for trial.”
“Warlocks?”
“That’s what the witches call them. Nobody else seems to have a name for them.”
“You’ve spoken to a witch about them, then?”
Manner nodded. “When I saw what was happening I went to the Wizards’ Quarter for advice. The magicians there are as puzzled as the rest of us, but Mother Perréa said this new magic resembles a technique used by witches in the Great War, and she called it war-locking.”
Naral frowned. “No one knew what caused this outbreak?”
“No one I spoke with,” Hanner confirmed.
“That’s bad.” The captain frowned again, then turned up an empty hand. “Well, perhaps by morning someone will have divined more.”
“And in the meantime, Captain, I have gathered several warlocks of goodwill, and with their aid taken four criminals prisoner, and I would like to bring them all into the Palace and get some sleep.”
Naral hesitated. “I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” he said at last.
Hanner had expected and dreaded this answer. “Why not?” he asked.
“We have been ordered to allow no one to enter the Palace, and most particularly not to allow any of these mad magicians— these warlocks, as you call them-near it.” “I’m sure my uncle didn’t mean that to includeme...”
“It wasn’t Lord Faran who gave the order, my lord,” Naral interrupted. “It was Lord Azrad himself. The overlord.”
Hanner blinked. “Oh,” he said.
That explained the apparent overreaction of lining up several hundred guards in the square. Lord Faran would probably have been more conservative of manpower; Lord Azrad, though, had never demonstrated any sense of proportion, nor shown any inclination to conserve anything but his own energy.
Right now Hanner was very much in the mood to conserve what little energy he had left himself-preferably while comfortably tucked into his own bed. He glanced up over his shoulder at Rudhira, and wondered how much she could carry.
“You realize that a warlock could probably just fly over your heads to reach the Palace?” he asked.
“She would have to fly through a storm of spears,” Naral said, his tone almost apologetic.
Hanner was not at all certain that would bother Rudhira, but decided against asking her. Instead he said, “Could someone please petition the overlord on my behalf? I’d very much like to get some sleep.”
“The overlord has retired for the night,” Naral said. “He gavevery strict orders that he was not to be disturbed except in the event of dire emergency.”
Hanner sighed deeply. “Then could someone send a message to my uncle, please? Lord Faran?”
Captain Naral considered that for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll send someone. What’s the message?”
“Simply that I’m out here, with several friends and four prisoners, and we would like to enter the Palace-at the very least,I would like to enter, to go to bed.”
“I’ll tell him, but I doubt he’ll defy the overlord’s edict. Lord Azrad was quite emphatic.”
“Just send the message, please, Captain.”
Naral bowed. “As you wish, my lord.” He turned away, beckoned to a guardsman apparently at random, and explained the errand.
While he did, Hanner turned to his own party.
“It appears we’ll have a wait, at the very least,” he said. “I’d suggest sitting down and getting a little rest.” He pointed at the curbstones surrounding a shrine set in the corner of the wall at Arena Street and Aristocrat Circle. “I’ll be right here if anyone needs me.”
With that, he settled himself on the nearest curbstone and leaned back, his head just touching the underside of the shrine’s offering shelf.
Just getting his weight off his aching feet for a moment felt wonderful. Yorn settled beside him, but had to duck slightly and lean forward to avoid banging his head on the shelf. He looked out at the neat lines of guardsmen and remarked, “I don’t see anyone from my company.”
“Well, that’s good,” Manner said. “Then you probably aren’t disobeying any orders by being here with me.”
Another of the warlocks, a weather-beaten fellow in gray homespun, settled on Manner’s other side, not on the curbstones but squatting with his back against the wall.
“We could all go out to the Hundred-Foot Field,” he said. “No one there would bother us once they realized we’re magicians.”
Manner looked at him. “I don’t think I heard your name,” he said.
“Zarek,” the other replied. “Zarek the Homeless, for the past few years.”
“Then you’ve slept in the Hundred-Foot Field before,” Manner said.
“Every night,” Zarek replied. “That’s where I was tonight when the screaming started, over in Westwark. I went to the Wizards’ Quarter thinking I might be able to trade the news of mysterious screaming for a free meal, but then I found out the whole city had been affected and everyone already knew. Andthen I found out that I could do this new magic, and while I was trying to think of some way to use it you made your announcement, and I came along with you in hopes it might mean a roof over my head for the night.”
Hanner stared at him.
Like everyone in Ethshar of the Spices, Hanner knew about the Hundred-Foot Field. More than two hundred years ago Azrad the Great had decreed that no permanent structure could be built in the hundred feet between Wall Street and the city wall-the area was to be kept clear so that troops could move freely along the defenses in time of war.
Of course, the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars hadn’t been in a real war for two centuries, not since the Great War finally ended, and empty space inside the city walls was too precious to be left empty. The law said no permanent structures could be built there, but it made no mention oftemporary ones, and Ethshar was crowded; accordingly, within days of the edict the city’s poor and homeless had begun to set up crude huts and flimsy tents in that hundred-foot gap.
The entire length of the Hundred-Foot Field, estimated at nine or ten miles, was a refuge for the outcasts of the Hegemony. Beggars, thieves, cripples, madmen-and those honest people who, for one reason or another, couldn’t afford to rent a room and had no wealthier friends or relatives who would take them in.
Hanner had seen the Hundred-Foot Field on those few occasions when his business had taken him to any of the city’s gates or within a block or so of Wall Street, but he had never gotten any closer than he had to. He had no intention of sleeping in the Hundred-Foot Field or even of setting foot in it. Zarek might be safe enough there, but Zarek wasn’t one of the city’s lords. Walking into the Field wearing silk embroidery and bay-leaf insignia was asking to be robbed; wearing worn homespun would attract far less interest.
On the other hand, Zarek wasn’t as filthy and miserable as Hanner would have expected a dweller in the Field to be. His hair and beard were desperately in need of washing and trimming, but they weren’t tangled or matted, and his hands and face were fairly clean, his skin clear of any lesions. He certainly looked far better than that rag-clad fellow Hanner had seen back in Witch Alley-that person Hanner would expect to sleep in the Hundred-Foot Field.
Legend had it that at one time the Field was green with grass and wildflowers, but now it was all bare dirt-hard-packed and dusty in dry summer heat, a sodden mass of sticky mud in the spring rains, icy in winter-trodden by hundreds, or more likely thousands, of feet. Despite that Zarek, while hardly dapper, was reasonably clean and presentable, and his account of his actions was direct and clear. He had plainly kept himself mentally and physically intact, despite the hardships of his life.